Arts news

• From Edvard Munch to Central Cee: Observer critics choose their cultural highlights for 2025

  04-01-2025 14:00
  From Thom Yorke’s Shakespearean score to 25 years of Tate Modern, Bridget Jones to Leigh Bowery, our writers anticipate the most exciting shows, releases and events of the yearAmerican auteurs return Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Why Was Soho House Talking Up Its Art Collection on the Eve of Announcing a Buyout Offer?

  22-01-2025 21:20 via artnews.com
  
  Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.Usually when you hear about Soho House during Art Basel Miami Beach, it’s because the private members’ club has thrown another swanky party at its Miami Beach location. But last month the spotlight instead fell on the club’s vast art collection. On December 5, Artnet News published a r
  
  Read more

• Jo Baer, Painter Who Renounced Minimalism for ‘Radical Figuration,’ Dies at 95

  22-01-2025 20:20 via artnews.com
  
  Jo Baer, a trailblazing painter who gained accolades as a Minimalist during the 1960s before diverging from the movement later on, died on Tuesday at 95. Her death was announced by Pace Gallery, which did not specify a cause.Across more than six decades of work, Baer found innovative—and challenging—ways of exploring how the eye perceives an image. While many artists of her generation were fascinated by similar themes, her work has repeatedly proven difficult to classify, conforming
  
  Read more

• Centuries-Old Artifacts, Ancient Roman Road Uncovered in France

  22-01-2025 20:07 via artnews.com
  
  French archaeologists have discovered artifacts and sites spanning multiple centuries, from the Late Bronze Age to the medieval era, in Pacé, Brittany, Popular Mechanics reports.A Roman road dating between the 2nd and 4th centuries CE was identified during an excavation, and a gold ring with an intaglio of Venus Victrix, a Romanized iteration of the goddess indicative of imperial power and romantic conquests, was found there. Dating to the 2nd or 3rd century CE, the stone in the ring is c
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Indian Court Orders Seizure of Two ‘Offensive’ MF Hussein Paintings

  22-01-2025 19:54 via artnews.com
  
  On Monday, a court in India’s capital city, Delhi, ordered the seizure of two paintings by the late Maqbool Fida Husain – aka MF Husain – after they were deemed “offensive” by authorities. He is one of India’s best-known artists.
  The judge gave the police permission to confiscate the artworks after a lawye, Amita Sachdeva, complained that the artworks which feature two Hindu deities, “hurt religious sentiments.” She posted on X on December 4 that s
  
  Read more

• Unseen work by Frank Bowling with hidden image of late son goes on show

  22-01-2025 17:16
  
  Abstract expressionist’s mysterious painting joins portraits by Warhol, Bacon and Hockney in Bath exhibitionThe image of the young boy is so faint that it is easy to miss – but if you gaze long enough he gradually materialises through the warm shades of orange, red and ochre.This is the first view of a previously unexhibited painting by the great abstract expressionist Frank Bowling showing – just about – an image of his son Richard Sheridan Bowling, better known as Dan.I
  
  Read more

• How Artists Are Rebuilding Asheville After Hurricane Helene

  22-01-2025 11:00 via artnews.com
  
  ON FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, torrential rainfall from Hurricane Helene caused the French Broad River in Asheville, North Carolina, to crest at 24.67 feet, the Swannanoa tributary at 26.1. All that water flowed outward from the banks and sloshed into surrounding neighborhoods, obliterating most everything in its path. Systems and infrastructure across the city were knocked out: power lines, cell towers, water distribution systems, and ATMs. While early fatality reports were low, it was apparent that
  
  Read more

• Artist Sakuliu Pavavaljung Gets Prison Sentence after Sexual Assault Investigation

  21-01-2025 23:15 via artnews.com
  
  Last week, Taiwan’s Pingtung District Court sentenced Sakuliu Pavavaljung, a Paiwan artist, to four and a half years in prison for sexually assaulting a female fan in 2021. According to ArtAsiaPacific, the court found Pavavaljung guilty of “violating the victim’s sexual autonomy and inflicting severe psychological trauma,” a verdict that followed a nearly four-year investigation. Pavavaljung can still appeal the decision.Pavavaljung is known for his contribution
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Art Basel Hong Kong Unveils Programming for 2025 Edition, With Emphasis on Local Partners

  21-01-2025 22:59 via artnews.com
  
  Art Basel announced its programming on Tuesday for the 2025 edition of its Hong Kong fair, set to open with a VIP preview day on March 26 and running until March 30.The fair, which will have 240 exhibitors this year, including 23 first-timers, is planning a series of curated programs, including Encounters, dedicated to large scale projects; Kabinett, where participating galleries present thematic exhibitions with a focus on presentations from Asia; a film program; and more.Last year, ahead of th
  
  Read more

• ‘The Brutalist’ Director Responds to Criticism of AI Used for Set, Accents

  21-01-2025 21:14 via artnews.com
  
  Brady Corbet has responded to online chatter regarding the use of artificial intelligence technology on his awards contender The Brutalist, which is coming under fire after the film’s editor Dávid Jancsó commented in an interview on the use of AI to enhance the performance of the film’s leads, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones.In an interview with video tech publication Red Shark News, Jancsó said the filmmakers use
  
  Read more

• Newsmakers: Daniel Merritt, Aspen Art Museum’s New Chief Curator, on Making Shows for Art Lovers and Adrenaline Junkies

  21-01-2025 19:52 via artnews.com
  
  Editor’s Note: This story is part of Newsmakers, a new ARTnews series where we interview the movers and shakers who are making change in the art world.In 2021, while an associate curator at one of New York City’s temples of experimental contemporary art, the Swiss institute, curator Daniel Merritt said that art history played a role is his practice, but was not a hill to die on. “What I think builds interesting curatorial work,” he said at the time to&
  
  Read more

• Trump Reinstates Executive Order Mandating ‘Classical’ Architecture for Government Buildings

  21-01-2025 19:50 via artnews.com
  
  Following his inauguration yesterday, President Donald Trump has reinstated a policy from his first term that favors “classical” styles for government buildings over modernist ones.The newly issued policy, officially titled the Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture executive order, is aimed at promoting a kind of civic architecture that “commands public admiration.” When it was first introduced in 2020, many US architects critiqued the move as regressive, viewing it as an
  
  Read more

• Founder Of IMDb To Step Down As CEO After 35 Years

  21-01-2025 18:15 via theverge.com
  
  Needham started building the database that later became IMDb in 1990. He remained CEO even after selling the website to Amazon in 1998, overseeing major changes like the rollout of its IMDbPro subscription and an update that lets professionals hide their age. – The Verge
  
  Read more

• Thomas Søndergård Makes His Mark On The Minnesota Orchestra

  21-01-2025 18:06 via nytimes.com
  
  Since succeeding Osmo Vänskä as music director in the fall of 2023, he has shown a flair for programming, thrown himself into community engagement (he insists on conducting family concerts himself), and enchanted the musicians. Says one principal, “We’re still on our honeymoon.” – The New York Times
  
  Read more

• Aaron De Groft, Former Orlando Museum Director Embroiled in Basquiat Scandal, Dies at 59

  21-01-2025 18:01 via artnews.com
  
  Aaron De Groft, the former CEO of the Orlando Museum of Art whose tenure was ultimately defined by a Basquiat forgery scandal, died on January 18 at 59. According to an obituary published on Monday, De Groft died after a brief illness. No further details were provided.De Groft assumed leadership of the Orlando Museum in 2021, following stints at helm of the Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. But his tenure at th
  
  Read more

• For Musicians, How Old Is Too Old?

  21-01-2025 17:44 via nightingalessonata.com
  Since the elimination of mandatory retirement in symphony orchestras and with union protections making it difficult to fire older players, many orchestras include members who look as though they just arrived from a retirement home. – Nightingale Sonata
  
  Read more

• Ghana to Investigate $400 M. David Adjaye–Designed National Cathedral in Accra

  21-01-2025 17:42 via artnews.com
  
  The National Cathedral of Ghana, a $400 million building in Accra that is being designed by architect David Adjaye’s firm, will reportedly be investigated after concerns were raised about its cost.The cathedral had been the source of controversy in Ghana well before Adjaye was accused of sexual misconduct in 2023. Adjaye has categorically denied those claims of misconduct, which were first reported by the Financial Times.His firm, Adjaye Associates, is currently at work on a building for t
  
  Read more

• Trump’s favourite artists – from the fawner who made him Gatsby to the court sketcher who tackled his bullet-grazed ear

  21-01-2025 17:18
  
  He snubbed Andy Warhol, fell for himself in tennis whites and asked a trial artist to Mar-a-Lago to capture his likeness after the assassination bid … we take a tour of the new president’s taste in artAmerica does not just have a new president. It also has a new king of pop art: Andres Serrano. It was Serrano who foresaw that Trump would prove to be an American phenomenon of a totally new kind. In 2016, when I interviewed the creator of the notorious work Piss Christ, Trump was runn
  
  Read more

• Jules Feiffer, award-winning political cartoonist and writer, dies at 95

  21-01-2025 17:16
  The provocative Pulitzer prize-winner was known for his edgy comic strip and his screenplay for Carnal KnowledgeJules Feiffer, the Pulitzer prize-winning artist and writer, has died at the age of 95.His wife, JZ Holden, confirmed his death to the Washington Post. He died of congestive heart failure at his upstate New York home on 17 January. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Controversy Over Two Oscar Contenders’ Use Of AI On Actors’ Voices

  21-01-2025 17:03 via theguardian.com
  The re-recording mixer for Emilia Pérez said that AI software was used to extend the vocal range of star Karla Sofía Gascón to reach that of her songs, and The Brutalist editor Dávid Jancsó used an AI program to correct the pronunciation in Adrien Brody’s and Felicity Jones’s Hungarian dialogue. – The Guardian
  
  Read more

• Why Scotland’s Government And Its Arts Funding Agency Are Like A “Dysfunctional Divorcing Couple”

  21-01-2025 16:34 via scotsman.com
  Alan Cumming, who made the comparison, provides a good example: he was hired in September to run the Pitlochry Festival Theatre and “invite the world’s best theatre artists” to perform. He still doesn’t know whether the company will be funded even for this summer. It’s like this throughout the sector. – The Scotsman
  
  Read more

• 21 Events That Defined the Art World’s Response to Israel’s War in Gaza

  21-01-2025 16:10 via artnews.com
  
  On Friday, Israel’s cabinet approved a six-week ceasefire agreement and partial hostage release deal with Hamas, temporarily bringing to an end a conflict that has wrought widespread death and destruction in Gaza.Official statistics from the Gaza health ministry put the death toll there at more than 46,000, though experts have suggested that many more people there may have been killed by Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion since Hamas’s attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.
  
  Read more

• KERA, Dallas’s Public Radio & TV Outlet, Announces $100 Million Expansion

  21-01-2025 16:02 via keranews.org
  
  “The station, which began broadcasting on television in 1960 and recently celebrated its 50th anniversary in radio, is expected to move out of its current building … at the end of February and break ground on a new building … later this year.” – KERA (Dallas)
  
  Read more

• The British Museum And Its 8 Million Objects, 6 Million Annual Visitors, Hundreds Of Researchers, And Overlapping Crises

  21-01-2025 15:35 via theguardian.com
  
  “It is a sprawling, chaotic reflection of Britain’s psyche over 300 years: its voracious curiosity and cultural relativism; its pugnacious superiority complex; its restless seafaring and trading; its cruel imperial enrichment; its brilliant scholarship, its brutality, its idealism, its postcolonial anxiety.” – The Guardian
  
  Read more

• Large Ancient Bathhouse/Spa Uncovered In Pompeii

  21-01-2025 15:01 via euronews.com
  
  “The newly unearthed spa complex comprises the classic Roman trio of thermal rooms — calidarium (hot), tepidarium (warm), and frigidarium (cold) — alongside a spacious apodyterium (changing room). … The remarkable discovery, located in insula 10, offers a rare glimpse into how wealthy Romans fused leisure, art, and political ambition within their homes.” – Euronews
  
  Read more

• Britain Should Offer Tax Deductions For Corporate Arts Philanthropy As France Does

  21-01-2025 14:36 via ft.com
  
  “Introduced in 2003 by then culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon, this policy incentivises corporate philanthropy for arts and charities by offering a 60 per cent tax relief on donations, capped at 0.5 per cent of a company’s annual turnover. The law has transformed France’s cultural funding.” – Financial Times
  
  Read more

• When People Are Losing Everything, Is Protecting Art Always Important?

  21-01-2025 14:00 via artsjournal.com
  The fires in Los Angeles have been brutal. Billions, if not trillions, will be needed. And the posh Getty Villa in posh Malibu, originally owned by and named for climate destruction activist, became a giant, vacuum-sealed symbol. It raises complex questions.
  While its gardens were destroyed, its bought-and-sold antiquities was sealed and spared. Oh, and the people who worked there didn’t die, so, you know, there’s that. (This work © 2025 by Alan Harrison is licensed under CC BY-
  
  Read more

• Cartoonist Jules Feiffer, 95

  21-01-2025 14:00 via msn.com
  “The Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter and children’s book author was one of the most humorously neurotic literary voices of his generation. … (He) found his voice in comics that provided a sardonic and sarcastic takedown of authority and conventional wisdom.” – The Washington Post (MSN)
  
  Read more

• Frieze LA Ploughs Ahead, San Francisco Art Week and FOG Fair Open, Artists Brace for Trump’s Reign: Morning Links for January 21, 2025

  21-01-2025 13:53 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The HeadlinesFRIEZE LA PLOUGHS AHEAD. Frieze Los Angeles will go ahead with its sixth edition from February 20 to 23, despite the devastating wildfires and continued warnings of “extreme fire weather,” reports Daniel Cassady for ARTnews. The Friday announcement came as locals increasingly made the case for supporting the city’s art scene in
  
  Read more

• The Great Wave: why has this become the defining image of our era?

  21-01-2025 06:00
  
  Almost two centuries after its creation, Hokusai’s print is more popular than ever, featuring on everything from nail art to Lego to socks. What is its appeal?You are never far from a great wave. Its foaming crest froths and sputters like ghostly fingers or monstrous claws raking over tote bags and journals. You can probably find it miniaturised in your emoji keyboard on your phone, and fading on a mouse mat or pair of socks somewhere nearby. The image – officially known as Under the
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUKnews on Twitter!