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• Artist Janiva Ellis, Art Historian Rizvana Bradley Cancel Harvard Event, Citing University’s Decision to ‘Repress Academic Freedom’

  01-04-2025 23:09 via artnews.com
  
  Artist Janiva Ellis said on Tuesday that she would pull out of a talk she’d been scheduled to give at Harvard University amid scrutiny over a variety of recent developments at the school, including reported attempts at conciliation with the Trump administration, which earlier this week threatened to pull billions of dollars in funding from the school.Ellis is currently the subject of a solo show at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, a contemporary art museum run by Harvard and locat
  
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• With a New Museum in India, France Again Wades into a Controversial Nation-Building Project

  15-04-2025 22:15 via artnews.com
  
  In December, India and France quietly reached an agreement for France Muséums Développement (FMD) to help develop the Yuga Yugeen Bharat National Museum in Delhi, which would replace the current National Museum of India. The museum will span 1.67 million square feet across several current government buildings which will be redeveloped for the new purpose.Announced in 2023, the YYBNM is the passion project of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been widely criticized for ma
  
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• Ukraine Culture Minister Accuses Russia of Selling Stolen Pieces of Ukrainian Cultural Property on Black Market

  15-04-2025 22:08 via artnews.com
  
  Russia has stolen more than 1.7 million pieces of Ukrainian cultural heritage since its full-scale invasion began, according to the Ukrainian Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications Mykola Tochytskyi.In an interview with Ukrinform, Tochytskyi said he spoke to European Union culture ministers, including representatives of Norway, Iceland, and the United Kingdom, during an informal meeting in Warsaw (April 7-8), about artworks and artifacts looted from Ukraine and sold on the black market
  
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• Elaine Wynn, Casino Resort Billionaire and Top Art Collector, Dies at 82

  15-04-2025 20:22 via artnews.com
  
  Elaine Wynn, a cofounder of Wynn Resorts in Las Vegas who put her billions toward arts and education philanthropy, has died at 82. The news was confirmed by her namesake family foundation on Tuesday, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which first broke the news. The foundation reportedly did not state a cause of death.Once dubbed the “Queen of Las Vegas,” Wynn and her former husband Stephen A. Wynn left an indelible impression on Sin City, opening all along on the Las Vegas S
  
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• Architect Antoni Gaudí Moves a Step Closer to Receiving Sainthood from the Vatican

  15-04-2025 19:24 via artnews.com
  
  The Vatican has moved Antoni Gaudí, the architect behind Barcelona’s famed Sagrada Familia church, a step closer toward achieving sainthood.On April 14, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, with authorization from Pope Francis, issued a decree recognizing Gaudí’s “heroic virtues,” a milestone in the confirmation process that designates him and other dead figures with ties to the church as “venerable.”“Venerable” is
  
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• Miami Art Dealer Charged for Peddling Fake Andy Warhols

  15-04-2025 18:16 via artnews.com
  
  A Miami art dealer was indicted in a federal court for selling fake Andy Warhol works, and could now face up to 10 years in prison.Leslie Roberts, 62, allegedly sold the works at his Coconut Grove gallery, Miami Fine Art Gallery. He was indicted alongside Carlos Miguel Rodriguez Melendez, 37, who allegedly helped him sell these pieces.Roberts claimed that the prints had been given the blessing of an authentication board run by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. But that board was di
  
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• 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships Go to Theaster Gates, Sara Cwynar, and Farah Al Qasimi

  15-04-2025 17:47 via artnews.com
  
  The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced this week the 198 scholars and artists who received a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships, one of the most coveted honors in the arts.This is the foundation’s 100th class of fellows. The awardees span 53 disciplines—divided into four categories of natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and creative arts—and have created projects that “directly respond to timely themes and issues such as climate cha
  
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• Lisson Gallery Now Represents Dalton Paula, Painter of Portraits of Overlooked Black Brazilian Historical Figures

  15-04-2025 17:38 via artnews.com
  
  Lisson Gallery will now represent Brazilian artist Dalton Paula, who is known for his paintings that depict important Black historical figures who have been overlooked until recently. Paula will have his first show with Lisson this September in New York.Lisson will represent Paula alongside his two Brazilian galleries, Martins&Montero, which has locations in São Paulo and Brussles, and Cerrado Galeria de Arte in Brasilia and Goiânia. (He was previously represented in New York by
  
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• New Brooklyn Art Fair Aims to Rewire the Market for Global Majority Artists

  15-04-2025 16:25 via artnews.com
  
  In a city already saturated with art fairs, a new entrant is promising to do more than just add to the noise. Conductor, a forthcoming initiative backed by Powerhouse Arts, will debut in 2026 with a mission to center artists and galleries from the “Global Majority”—a term used to refer to communities from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, and Indigenous Nations worldwide.The fair’s soft launch, a curated invitational preview, is se
  
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• Activist Fund Condemns Decision to Relocate Rothko’s ‘Seagram Murals’ to Private Members’ Club in Tokyo

  15-04-2025 16:21 via artnews.com
  
  Hong Kong-based activist fund Oasis Management has criticized Japanese chemical company DIC Corporation for choosing to relocate the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art to the International House of Japan (IHJ), a private members’ club in Tokyo.The move includes an extensive collection of valuable artworks, including seven of Mark Rothko’s “Seagram Murals.”Oasis, a major shareholder in severely indebted, loss-making DIC Corp – which owns the now-closed museum &
  
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• Leigh Bowery’s Tate Survey Exudes Grimy, Glamorous Hedonism

  15-04-2025 15:28 via artnews.com
  
  “I never want to look ordinary,” Leigh Bowery told i-D magazine in 1985. Tate Modern’s new exhibition on his life and work proves that he succeeded—and then some. A gay icon in 1980s and ’90s London club culture, Bowery was a fashion designer, performance artist, and total original from the start. The show follows him from his arrival in London from Australia at the age of 19 through the inception of his infamous club Taboo, his establishment as an avant-garde fashi
  
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• A Met Security Guard Gets an Off-Broadway Show

  15-04-2025 11:00 via artnews.com
  
  When Patrick Bringley was 25, his older brother, a brilliant doctoral student, died from cancer. Reeling from the loss, Bringley decided to put his burgeoning career at the New Yorker on hold. A visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with his mother offered an unexpected reprieve: lingering in front of paintings, he found solace in simply being allowed to “dwell in silence.”The experience planted a seed. Not long after, he left his job at the august magazine and accepted a position
  
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• Copyright Case Between Deborah Roberts and Richard Beavers Gallery ‘Amicably Resolved’

  14-04-2025 22:17 via artnews.com
  
  The more than two-year-long legal dispute in which collage artist Deborah Roberts had sued artist Lynthia Edwards and Richard Beavers Gallery for alleged copyright infringement has been “amicably resolved,” according to a joint statement from all parties. “We acknowledge that Deborah Roberts has brought a unique and important voice to the medium of collage,” Beavers and Edwards said in the statement. “Many young and emerging artists have been inspired by Deborah and
  
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• For LA Artists, Getting Back to Work Means Playing the Long Game

  14-04-2025 21:49 via artnews.com
  
  In the time between the January fires and February’s Frieze week, Los Angeles galleries and museums seemed intent on supporting affected artists directly, and on commemorating the immense loss the city suffered. Emergency grants and mutual aid efforts sprang up everywhere, and every other gallery seemed to host a benefit show or a panel about Altadena’s storied Black artistic legacy.Most of these efforts dissipated after Frieze week. The benefit shows have all come down. And while th
  
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• Ukrainian Artist Margarita Polovinko Dies at 31 in Combat with Russia

  14-04-2025 20:00 via artnews.com
  
  Ukrainian artist Margarita Polovinko, whose drawings and photography excavated her post-Soviet reality and later, the Russian invasion, died at age 31 while serving as a combat medic. Her death was announced on April 8 by her sister, who wrote in an Instagram post, “Margarita died defending Ukraine.”Margarita Polovinko was born on March 24, 1994, in Kryvyi Rih, an industrial city in central Ukraine, and the cultural peripherality of her time and place informed her early artistic preo
  
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• ‘Fight, Fight, Fight’: White House Replaces Obama Portrait with Trump Raising Fist After Assassination Attempt 

  14-04-2025 18:44 via artnews.com
  
  The White House has reshuffed its artwork on display, with the official portrait of former President Barack Obama replaced by a painting of President Donald Trump.“Some new artwork at the White House,” reads the video caption that the White House posted on X documenting the switch on Friday.The new portrait features Trump raising his fist in the air, following a pivotal moment on the campaign trail, while seeking a second term, when a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at an event
  
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• Asset Manager Group Led by Hollywood Super Agent Ari Emmanuel Nears Deal That Could Include Frieze

  14-04-2025 18:39 via artnews.com
  
  Ari Emanuel, Hollywood super agent and CEO of Endeavor Group Holdings, is edging closer to a major acquisition that could expand his influence from sports and entertainment into the art world. A consortium he leads, partnered with New York private equity firms Apollo Global Management and RedBird Capital Partners, has reportedly outbid the European firm CVC Capital Partners to buy a group of assets currently owned by Endeavor, valued at over $1 billion, Bloomberg reported last week.The centerpie
  
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• Asset Manager Group Led by Hollywood Super Agent Ari Emanuel Nears Deal that Could Include Frieze

  14-04-2025 18:39 via artnews.com
  
  Ari Emanuel, Hollywood superagent and CEO of Endeavor Group Holdings, is edging closer to a major acquisition that could expand his influence from sports and entertainment into the art world.A consortium he leads, partnered with New York private equity firms Apollo Global Management and RedBird Capital Partners, has reportedly outbid the European firm CVC Capital Partners to buy a group of assets currently owned by Endeavor, valued at more than $1 billion, Bloomberg reported last week.The center
  
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• New Exhibit at National Archaeological Museum in Naples Features 600 Previously Missing Artifacts

  14-04-2025 17:29 via artnews.com
  
  An exhibition featuring hundreds of previously missing artifacts, some of them hunted by a special police unit over decades, are now being exhibited for the first time at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.The museum in Southern Italy has preserved 15,000 artifacts that have been seized or confiscated by the Carabinieri, a police unit focused on the protection of Italy’s cultural heritage. The new exhibit, “Rediscovered Treasures: Stories of Crimes and Stolen Finds” f
  
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• Ukrainian Artist Killed, Dealer Arrested for Warhol Fakes, and More: Morning Links for April 14, 2025

  14-04-2025 16:17 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The Headlines UKRAINIAN ARTIST MARGARITA POLOVINKO DIED in combat, while serving on the frontlines as a medic and soldier in the Ukrainian army, reports Monopol and the New Voice of Ukraine.  She was 31. Polovinko’s artworks spoke of post-Soviet life and war, sometimes using her own blood as pigment in paintings depicting s
  
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• Dealer Arrested for Warhol Fakes, Artist Killed inn Ukraine, and More: Morning Links for April 14, 2025

  14-04-2025 16:17 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The Headlines UKRAINIAN ARTIST MARGARITA POLOVINKO DIED in combat, while serving on the frontlines as a medic and soldier in the Ukrainian army, reports Monopol and the New Voice of Ukraine.  She was 31. Polovinko’s artworks spoke of post-Soviet life and war, sometimes using her own blood as pigment in paintings depicting s
  
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• The 15 Most Expensive Artworks Ever Sold at Auction

  14-04-2025 15:00 via artnews.com
  
  Auction records make for great headlines. There’s a thrill in watching numbers climb into the stratosphere, each sale another reminder that, in the art market, money has a way of bending reality. But the price of a painting has never been the most interesting thing about it.Look at the list of the most expensive artworks ever sold at auction, and you’ll see more than just a parade of billionaires with good taste (or at least expensive taste). You’ll see a history of ideas&mdash
  
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• British Museum will Loan ‘Some of the Rarest Surviving Examples’ of Ice Age Art to UK’s 2025 City of Culture

  14-04-2025 14:34 via artnews.com
  
  The British Museum has announced that it will loan “some of the rarest surviving examples” of Ice Age art to Bradford, the 2025 UK City of Culture.Around 70 objects from the museum will be shown in the northern city as part of an exhibition titled “Ice Age Art Now.” It is the result of a partnership between the British Museum and Bradford District Museum & Galleries, and is slated to open at Cliffe Castle Museum in the town of Keighley, West Yorkshire, on June 21. The
  
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• British Museum to Loan ‘Some of the Rarest Surviving Examples’ of Ice Age Art to UK’s 2025 City of Culture

  14-04-2025 14:34 via artnews.com
  
  The British Museum has announced that it will loan “some of the rarest surviving examples” of Ice Age art to Bradford, the 2025 UK City of Culture.Around 70 objects from the museum will be shown in the northern city as part of an exhibition titled “Ice Age Art Now.” It is the result of a partnership between the British Museum and Bradford District Museum & Galleries, and is slated to open at Cliffe Castle Museum in the town of Keighley, West Yorkshire, on June 21. The
  
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• Amy Sherald’s Portraits Have Injected the Genre with New Life, But They Also Flatten Blackness

  14-04-2025 11:00 via artnews.com
  
  In Amy Sherald’s unique visual language, muted yet commanding Black subjects are set against bold color fields. These eye-catching portraits reward longer looking. Her subjects, donning carefully selected garments, face audiences directly with quiet dignity, their skin painted in shades of gray. Sherald’s elegant compositions celebrate various American visual traditions, from fashion spreads and clothing advertisements to historical painting from John Singer Sargent’s intimate
  
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• Trump’s Sculpture Garden of ‘American Heroes’ Moves Ahead with NEH Funding

  11-04-2025 19:22 via artnews.com
  
  President Trump’s planned National Garden of American Heroes is one step closer to construction, as the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has reportedly re-dedicated a portion of its funding to the president’s campaign to align arts and culture in the United States with his interpretation of patriotism.According to a report Friday in the New York Times, the agency, which is the foremost federal funder of creative endeavors in the country, disclosed the decision in a Wednesd
  
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• Qatar Names Lina Ghotmeh as Architect for Forthcoming National Pavilion in Venice

  11-04-2025 19:21 via artnews.com
  
  Qatar has selected Lina Ghotmeh as the architect to create the permanent Qatar Pavilion for the Venice Biennale.To be located in the Giardini, where France, Great Britain, the United States, and some other 30 countries have their pavilions, it will be only the third such structure to open in the Giardini in the past 50 years, after Australia and South Korea.Principal of the Paris-based firm Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture, Ghotmeh has described her design philosophy as presenting an “Arc
  
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• Monumental Ruins Emerge Following Massive Myanmar Earthquake

  11-04-2025 19:19 via artnews.com
  
  The ruins of a possible water palace from the Konbaung Dynasty era have emerged following the massive 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck Myanmar late last month.The earthquake that killed thousands of people and damaged infrastructure and structures across the country, including heritage sites, also unearthed long-forgotten monuments and ancient ruins.Ruins that archaeologists believe may have once been a water palace or water-related structure for royal ceremonies held by ancient Myanmar king
  
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• Andy Warhol’s Big Electric Chair to Sell at Christie’s in May with $30 M. Estimate 

  11-04-2025 18:41 via artnews.com
  
  ​Amid a drop in high-end art sales, Christie’s plans to auction Andy Warhol’s Big Electric Chair (1967–68) during its May evening sale in New York from the the collection of Belgian patrons Roger Matthys and Hilda Colle.The painting, measuring six feet in width and featuring as its central subject a midcentury executioner’s chair, is estimated around $30 million. Matthys and Colle, both deceased, were known figures in the contemporary art scene in Ghent as benefacto
  
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• Conservation Work on Vermeer Painting Suggests It May Have Been His Final Work 

  11-04-2025 18:25 via artnews.com
  
  A little dust never hurt anyone—unless, perhaps, you’re trying to date a Vermeer.Conservation work on Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, the only Vermeer still in private hands, has uncovered a layer of 17th-century air pollution between layers of paint that helped date the rare Old Master picture, according to The Art Newspaper.Specifically, feldspar particles—byproducts of the booming Delftware ceramics industry in Vermeer’s hometown—were trapped in the c
  
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