Arts news

• MFA Boston to Rescind Promised Gift of Benin Bronzes, Close Dedicated Gallery

  22-04-2025 22:36 via artnews.com
  
  In an unprecedented move for a United States arts institution, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will return a promised gift of Benin Bronzes and close the collection’s dedicated gallery on April 28. The gallery will ultimately transition into a space for displaying the MFA Boston’s collection of Nubian art, a small selection of which will go on view beginning May 1, followed by a “more robust” display when the works return from a touring exhibition.The Benin Bronzes&
  
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• Forthcoming Obama Presidential Center in Chicago Taps Two Artists for Major Commissions

  22-04-2025 22:20 via artnews.com
  
  U.S. artists Spencer Finch and Lindsay Adams have been commissioned for two new installations at the Obama Presidential Center, which is set to open in early 2026 in Chicago.The forthcoming building project, which has cost more than $200 million, is currently under construction at a 19-acre campus in the Midwestern city, where Barack and Michele Obama have a separate namesake foundation. The former spent several years in the city as a law professor at the University of Chicago and as a community
  
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• Hard Choices: Should You Try Marina Abramović’s Longevity Method?

  22-04-2025 21:02 via artnews.com
  
  With a world in crisis and an art market spinning out of control, ace art-world consultants Chen & Lampert deliver a quiz full of hard choices for Art in America readers from far and wide.People say art is a young person’s game, and with all the hot artist and influencer portraits in magazines and social media, it feels like the industry insists that your painted face is as important as your painting. Last year, Marina Abramović launched a wellness line to shar
  
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• 3,000-Year-Old Necropolis Unearthed in Abu Dhabi

  22-04-2025 19:21 via artnews.com
  
  The first major Iron Age cemetery in the United Arab Emirates has been unearthed in the Al Ain region of Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT Abu Dhabi) recently revealed.The 3,000-year-old necropolis is believed to include more than 100 tombs filled with grave goods. Experts from DCT Abu Dhabi’s archaeology section of the historic environment department found a few small pieces of gold jewelry; shell cosmetic containers; bead necklaces; bracelets; rings; raz
  
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• Sotheby’s Secures $70 M. Giacometti Bust for May Auction

  22-04-2025 19:17 via artnews.com
  
  Sotheby’s has landed a major prize for its May 13 modern art evening sale in New York: Grande tête mince (Grande tête de Diego), a 1955 bronze bust by Alberto Giacometti, estimated at more than $70 million.The work was hand-painted by the artist as a tribute to his brother Diego, Giacometti’s lifelong muse and studio assistant. It is the most high-profile lot announced so far for the spring auctions, exceeding a Piet Mondrian painting, estimated to sell for arou
  
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• Leading Parisian Gallery Withdraws from Art Basel’s Swiss Edition Due to Booth Placement

  22-04-2025 19:09 via artnews.com
  
  Air de Paris, one of France’s leading contemporary art galleries, has said that it has withdrawn from Art Basel’s marquee Swiss edition in June over its booth placement on the floor plan for the upcoming fair.For the 2023 and 2024 editions, Air de Paris has had booth L2, in the first row of the Messe Basel’s second floor, directly opposite the escalators from the first floor. This prime location means that the gallery’s stand is among the first things people see while asc
  
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• Roberto Lugo’s Ceramics Are the Artifacts of a Future Past 

  22-04-2025 16:50 via artnews.com
  
  Like a well-told story, Roberto Lugo’s current solo exhibition takes an unexpected turn. In addition to a selection of his recent ceramic works that draw on ancient Grecian vessels dating back to the 5th century BCE, the Philadelphia-based artist is showing a series of sculptural fragments that have been made strange and weathered, as if they too have just been unearthed after centuries.  On view at the Princeton University Art Museum through July 6, “Orange and Black” is
  
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• Israel May Be Unable to Participate in the 2026 Venice Biennale: Report

  22-04-2025 16:33 via artnews.com
  
  Israel’s participation in the 2026 Venice Biennale is in jeopardy, according to a Haaretz report that said the country’s government is struggling renovate its pavilion in a timely fashion.The Israeli Pavilion was memorably shuttered on opening day in 2024 by artist Ruth Patir, who said, along with her curators, that she would only reopen her show upon a hostage deal with Hamas and a ceasefire in Gaza, neither of which occurred during the exhibition’s run. Israel is not particip
  
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• Georgian-Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli Has Died, Turkish Dissidents Detained, and More: Morning Links for April 22, 2025

  22-04-2025 16:28 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The Headlines TURKISH DISSIDENTS SUPPRESSION. The Turkish government has been arresting cultural workers as it cracks down on political opposition to its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, reports The Art Newspaper. Protests erupted following the March 19 arrest of Erdogan rival and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was det
  
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• Christie’s to Auction $60 M. in Art from Anne and Sid Bass’s Fort Worth Home

  22-04-2025 16:04 via artnews.com
  
  Christie’s will sell nine works from the Bass House, designed by architect Paul Rudolph. With estimates totaling more than $60 million, those works will head to auction this May as part of its 20th century evening sale in New York.The group includes works by Mark Rothko, Alexander Calder, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, Agnes Martin, Gino Severini, and Morris Louis from the collection of Sid and Anne Bass, whose home in Fort Worth, Texas, was carefully custom-designed by Rudolph with displa
  
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• A Look Inside the Past and Future of Saudi Arabia’s Art Scene, with the Founder of One of its Buzziest Galleries

  22-04-2025 15:30 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.It’s impossible to tell the story of the contemporary art scene in Saudi Arabia without talking about Athr Gallery. Founded in Jeddah in 2009 by Mohammed Hafiz and Hamsa Serafi, Athr has since grown to multiple locations and a foundation that awards grants and residencies, and hosts programming like the Young Saudi
  
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