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Florentina Holzinger Is Closing Out ‘Seaworld Venice’ With a ‘Final Dinner’ Made From Bodily Waste

In piano parlance, an étude is a technically tricky piece of music typically practiced to push a musician beyond their limits. Following that logic, the name of Florentina Holzinger’s final Venice Biennale performance, CLOSING É TUDE , suggests that after seven months of her propriety-imploding, waste-wonderland SEAWORLD VENICE , there are feats of endurance still ahead. Part performance, part installation, SEAWORLD VENICE opened at the Austrian Pavilion in May with the piercing peal of a colossal bell salvaged from the Venice Lagoon. In line with her body-first philosophy, a nude Holzinger served as its human clapper. The bell, sans artist, continues to mark the passage of time, ringing every hour over the pavilion and its guests, a grotesque altar to the ongoing Venetian apocalypse. Human refuse (freshly sourced) and lagoon waste, the sort that occasionally washes in with the high tide, form the material of her installation. Visitors were encouraged to use p...
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What’s Selling at Art Basel Paris? Reported Sales Top Out at $10 M. for a Richter and a Baselitz

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Top galleries are placing plenty of works for prices above $1 million at Art Basel Paris 2026. Dealer Emmanuel Di Donna told ARTnews at the Avant-Première preview on Tuesday afternoon (aka the VVIP opening) that the experience is like “drinking from a fire hose.” That was followed by the VIP preview on Wednesday. This all came off without a hitch amid heightened security as protests roiled Paris after demonstrations by high school students against crumbling educational infrastructure and absent teachers in a local suburb literally caught fire, with thousands taking to the streets, with some resulting property damage. The priciest work on display, on offer from Pace DiDonna Schrader, is a rare 1917 painting of a reclining nude woman by Amedeo Modigliani, Nu étendu (Lolotte) , valued in excess of $100 million. As of Wednesday evening local time, there was no word on whether the piece had found a buyer, but its presence testified to dealers’ faith that top ...
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Donors Are Secretly Trying to Save the Kennedy Center’s Artworks from ‘Destruction’ or Disposal Amid Trump Takeover

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It has been widely reported that the Kennedy Center is at the center of a power struggle between the Trump administration and preservationists, as the president wants to rename it in his own honor and insists that the decaying building must close for renovations. He has threatened that it will be razed if he does not get his way. Now, CNN reports that donors who have given artwork to the institution are trying to reclaim their gifts, fearing for their safety amid a renovation and in the wake of layoffs. They are not convinced that the leadership, largely appointed by Trump, values the artworks as part of the institution’s holdings. According to an internal document reviewed by CNN, officials have been working since at least late last year on a plan that proposed the “disposal” of artworks, whether by “return to country of origin, transfer or exchange with another institution, public sale, or destruction.” “I want ...
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Summer of Sevens around the corner

Rupeni Raviyawa flashes in for a try at the WRFU Club Sevens last November for his new club Hutt Old Boys Marist. The Eagles won the series and in February won the National Club 7s and Raviyawa was one of the leading players of the tournament. Photo: Andy McArthur.  The 2026/27 sevens season for lower...
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New York’s Massey Klein Gallery Closes Its Doors and Goes Nomadic After Nine Years

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New York’s Massey Klein Gallery will close its doors after nine years, saying that after initial success, the numbers no longer add up to pay for its showroom on the Lower East Side and support the dealers’ family and the gallery’s artists. Husband-and-wife team Garrett Klein and Ryan Massey felt called by their Christian faith to open the gallery, and say they’ll continue on with nomadic projects. They announced the closure in a Saturday Instagram post. The gallery’s current show, of Kate McQuillen, is extended through November 20. The gallery has participated in prominent fairs including the Armory Show and NADA in New York, Untitled in Miami, and the Dallas Art Fair. At NADA New York in 2025, ARTnews ’s Harrison Jacobs noted its display as one of the fair’s best . “Our relationship with God has informed what we want the gallery to feel like,” said Klein in a phone interview. “We’re all accustomed to feeling uninvited at galleries. We wanted to cr...
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Zohran Mamdani Spends a Birthday to Remember at the Studio Museum in Harlem

What’s on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s mind? Policy, policing, potholes, surely. But this week, the Studio Museum in Harlem also made the list. The freshly 35-year-old mayor shared on Instagram that he spent his birthday at the museum yesterday. According to him, one painting on view left a lingering impression: The Hypnotist (2026) by Atlanta native Taylor Simmons. The work, he wrote, was “just incredible.” Simmons is a 2026 artist-in-residence, along with Simonette Quamina and Derriann Pharr, in the first cohort to work and exhibit in the museum’s new building . A documentarian of sorts, he works across painting, prints, and drawings, rendering mundane scenes made fantastic when filtered through dreams. Found and personal imagery are threaded with pop culture, set in an electrified palette, and layered so that body and background bleed across black lines. It’s fair to say the story of The Hypnotist is up to interpretation. Pe...
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Artists honoured with 2026 Arts Foundation Laureate Awards

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Anapela Polataivao is a New Zealand actor, writer, and director of stage and screen. Photo: Michael Craig Samoan theatre director Anapela Polata’ivao and actor and filmmaker Madeleine Sami are among eight leading artists recognised for their outstanding contributions to Aotearoa’s creative and cultural landscape. The annual awards recognise New Zealand artists who have made significant contributions to the country’s creative and cultural landscape. Each recipient will receive $50,000, with a total of $400,000 awarded through the generosity of arts supporters across Aotearoa. The funding comes with no conditions, allowing artists to continue developing their work. Among this year’s recipients is Anapela Polata’ivao , recognised with the Sir Roger Hall Theatre Award for her contribution to Pacific theatre and storytelling. The selection panel described Polata’ivao as a “true Pasifika pioneer” who has consistently broken new ground while remaini...
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