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As the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) prepares to fully open it doors on Saturday, the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is calling on the country’s president to allocate some of the museum’s revenue in support of animals giving tourist rides to the museum and surrounding historic sites in Giza. Today, PETA Asia sent a letter to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi notifying him of PETA’s recently released video footage of the dead bodies of horses and camels stacked outside the new museum’s walls. “Every single day, they are dumped like trash, and the world is horrified,” the letter from PETA senior vice president Jason Baker reads. “While millions of visitors will be drawn to the GEM because of Egypt’s cultural achievements, they may also witness animals being beaten, denied water, and forced to work until their bodies give out, their lifeless bodies piling up just beyond the walls of the pyramids. Such suffering devastates the animals and h...

Italy’s biggest contemporary art fair, Artissima, opened its doors for its 32nd edition to VIPs on Thursday in Turin’s Oval Lingotto arena. Earlier this week, the fair’s director Luigi Fassi told ARTnews that “there are high hopes” after the Italian government this past July slashed VAT on art sales from 22 percent to just 5 percent. “I am personally more positive than ever,” said Fassi, who is leading his fourth Artissima. “The drop is VAT is big news. We now have the lowest tax rate on art sales in the European Union, and this is the first international fair in Italy since the cut, so everyone is excited. It gives Italian galleries and collectors a solid foundation to compete on an international level.” The government finally bowed after two decades of lobbying from galleries, antique dealers, and auction houses. A study published earlier this year by consulting and market intelligence company Nomisma estimated that cutting the VAT could see an additional generation of €1.5 bill...

Above: when the All Blacks played Ireland in Dublin in 1963.  By Kevin McCarthy The country will seem a bit emptier for the next month – because 70 of the best rugby players are in the northern hemisphere. Plus, an unspecified number of coaching and support staff. So, a round 100 folks would seem a...

Gaëtane Verna, the embattled executive director of the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, will resign effective immediately. The news comes a week after the Columbus Dispatch reported that Wexner had accumulated a $1.1 million deficit in fiscal year 2024, and that more than a dozen employees signed a formal letter of no confidence in Verna’s leadership. That letter was sent to university officials. The Dispatch reported that employees at the center were informed of the resignation in an October 29 email from Ohio State University Provost Ravi M. Bellamkonda. According to the email reviewed by the Dispatch , senior vice provost for academic affairs Trevor Brown will “guide this transition in close collaboration with the center’s leadership team” until an interim leader is named. “The Wex is well known for its outstanding staff of creative and dedicated professionals and, with your continued support, we will continue to serve the community and support artists from...

Rare and never-before-exhibited works by Matthew Wong will head to Venice in time for next year’s Biennale, marking one of the most high-profile shows planned for La Serenissima during the spring. The show, titled “Matthew Wong: Interiors,” is being curated by John Cheim, whose defunct New York gallery was among the few to show the artist’s work during his brief life. Wong, who died by suicide at 35 in 2019, is today remembered for the vivacity of the colors he used to depict snowy landscapes and still lifes. Based in Canada for much of his career, Wong was on the cusp of greater recognition at the time of his passing and has since become even more well-known. His art currently hangs in the Museum of Modern Art’s galleries, and he was the subject of a traveling survey in 2022. The 35-work Venice show will focus on “interiors, both physical and psychological,” according to a release, and is being put on by his foundation, which is run by his mother Monita. “The exploration of the ...

Over the past few decades, there has been increasing public awareness, both in the arts and medical communities, that art—along with sleep, good nutrition, and exercise—may play a role in promoting physical and mental health. Now an initiative launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), Jameel Arts & Health Lab, and medical journal The Lancet will show scientific evidence for the idea. According to a statement on the WHO’s website, “Including the arts in health care delivery has been shown to support positive clinical outcomes for patients while also supporting other stakeholders, including health care providers, the patient’s loved ones and the wider community. Benefits are seen across several markers, including health promotion, the management of health conditions and illness, and disease prevention.” In 2023, the WHO and the Jameel Arts & Health Lab announced a forthcoming Lancet Global Series on the Health Benefits of the Arts. A series of research papers and comm...

As part of its continued bid to become a major art center, Qatar will launch a quadrennial in November 2026. The first edition, titled “Unruly Water,” will be curated by Tom Eccles, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies and the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Ruba Katrib, chief curator and director of curatorial affairs at MoMA PS1 in New York; Mark Rappolt, editor-in-chief of ArtReview magazine; and Shabbir Husain Mustafa, a curator at the National Gallery of Singapore. The exhibition’s name is a reference to a book by Sunil S. Amrith about bodies of water in South Asia. The quadrennial will take place in Al Riwaq, an exhibition pavilion next to the Museum of Islamic Art that has hosted blockbuster shows by such artists as Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami. Among the projects to be included in the show is a cooking performance, titled untitled 2025 (no bread no ashes) , by Rirkrit Tiravanija that was unveiled on Wednesday at ...

Seven leading foundations have come together to launch the Literary Arts Fund to distribute $50 million over a five-year span to support nonprofit literary arts across the United States. The Literary Arts Fund will award grants to US-based nonprofits and fiscally sponsored literary organizations and publishers that support contemporary writers across poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction genres, as well as hybrid literary forms. The Fund will disburse its grants via an annual open call; this year’s cycle will begin accepting applications on November 10. The seven participating philanthropic organizations are the Ford Foundation, the Hawthornden Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, and an anonymous foundation. The fund was initiated by Mellon as a collaborative effort, with plans to continue fundraising for future years. Each of the seven foundations made a one-time gift to est...

A new study, published  in the  American Journal of Archaeology , aims to show that the ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten was abandoned not because of a plague, as many have previously assumed, but for different reasons entirely. Akhetaten, or present-day Amarna, was founded during the reign of Akhenaten, who was known as Amonhotep IV and who worshiped the sun god Aten. His new royal residence and the capital of the Egyptian kingdom was only occupied for about 20 years until it was abandoned not long after the pharaoh’s death. It has long been thought that the quick decline and mysterious abandonment of the city was due to an epidemic that was also cited in textual sources. Hittite plague prayers, for example, claimed that Egyptian war captives brought an epidemic to its empire. Letters from Amarna additionally indicate a disease outbreak in Meggido, Byblos, and Sumur. However, none of these sources specifically named an epidemic in Akhetaten. Researchers Gretchen Dabbs a...

German police said they busted an international forgery ring that was trying to sell fake works for millions of dollars to unsuspecting collectors. The fraudsters claimed the works were by artists including Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, and Frida Kahlo. An unnamed 77-year-old German man from Bavaria is the suspected ringleader, the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (BLKA) said. Investigators believe he was helped by 10 accomplices. The ringleader was arrested after he tried to sell two supposedly genuine Picasso paintings, one of which was a portrait of the Spanish artist’s muse, Dora Maar. Original Picasso works on the subject fetch lofty prices at auction; only last week, the Drouot auction house in Paris sold a painting of Maar for €32 million (about $37 million). German police gave the investigation, which started at the beginning of this year, the code name “Dora Maar” as a result. They conducted searches throughout the country in cities including Schwandorf, Erlangen, Wiss...

The Biennale of Sydney, Australia’s top biennial, has revealed the full artist list for its 2026 edition, which is due to open on March 14, 2026. The exhibition is closely watched by curators and has accordingly brought on as its organizer a curator who is herself widely acclaimed: Hoor Al Qasimi , the president and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation. It is her second biennial-style show in the past year, after the Aichi Triennale in Japan. Al Qasimi’s Biennale of Sydney is called “Rememory,” a term from Toni Morrison’s legendary 1987 novel Beloved . Morrison used the word to refer to states in which traumatic past events are recalled piecemeal by groups of people fighting erasure. “Working with artists to bring ‘Rememory’ to life, I am struck by the profound timeliness of this edition. The Biennale has always been a site for the most vital, urgent, and resonant art of its moment,” Al Qasimi said in a statement. “Yet this edition feels especially present, even insisten...

Few philosophers score a book-to-film treatment, and fewer still become blockbusters. Jean Baudrillard—the scholar whose idea of simulation both inspired and appeared in The Matrix (1999)—is the rare exception. In one scene, Neo hides illegal software in a hollowed-out copy of Simulacra & Simulation (1981). Handing it over, the buyer warns him: “This never happened. You don’t exist.” A more explicit reference was cut from an early draft of the script—a line that cast Baudrillard as a kind of prophet or god: “As in Baudrillard’s vision, your whole life has been spent inside the map, not the territory.” Of course, with popularization comes oversimplification. Baudrillard thought The Matrix made “an embarrassing error” in its caricatured contrast between the simulated and the real, and he turned down an offer to serve as “theoretical consultant” on the sequels. The art world’s adaptations, he thought, were even worse—or so Emmanuelle Fantin and Bran Nicol argue in their slim new ...

Sotheby’s tapped into the energy of Art Basel Paris week and recorded the highest-ever totals in France for surrealist and modern art auctions on Friday. The house’s Surrealism and Its Legacy and Modernitês sales took a combined €89.7 million ($104 million), marking a 50 percent increase on the same double-header sale last year. The result was also the highest total for a various owner sale series at Sotheby’s Paris. Amedeo Modigliani’s Elvire en buste (1918-1919) led the way, soaring past its €7,500,000 ($8.7 million) high estimate and selling for €27 million ($31.3 million). This is the highest auction price for the Italian artist in France. Not only this, but it also became the most valuable work ever sold by Sotheby’s Paris. Seven bidders chased the painting, which had not been seen since 1947, when it entered a private collection. Another work by Modigliani titled Raymond (1915)—believed to depict the novelist Raymond Radiguet and held in the same private collection f...

Safran is a name that is synonymous with aerospace and defense innovation and now, this global powerhouse is deepening its roots in Canada. In this episode of Vanguard Radio , host J. Richard Jones sits down with Louis Girardin , CEO of Safran Electronics & Defense Canada , to explore how one of the world’s oldest defense innovators is bringing new energy and cutting-edge technologies to Canada’s evolving defence landscape. Louis shares his perspective on Safran’s long and storied history, the company’s expanding footprint in Montreal, and the strategic role Safran Electronics & Defense plays in advancing capabilities across air, land, sea, and space. He discusses how Safran’s world-class technologies—ranging from avionics and navigation to optronics and mission systems—are enabling greater interoperability and sovereignty for Canada and its allies. The conversation also delves into the broader Canadian defense market, the challenges and opportunities facing the ...

Defending champions Hutt International Boys’ School return to the scene of their triumph when they line up alongside nine other Senior Boys school teams at the annual Wellington region Condor 7s tournament at Naenae College tomorrow. Last year HIBS beat then two-time defending champions Scots College 19-17 in a blockbuster final to win their first...

In a season when generosity feels in short supply, Art Basel has quietly rolled out something resembling altruism. According to several first- and second-time exhibitors at Art Basel Paris , the fair has been offering booth-fee discounts to new participants—20 percent for “freshmen,” 10 percent for “sophomores.” The galleries were notified in an email sent shortly after Labor Day. Multiple dealers confirmed receipt of the email, and while it’s unclear when exactly the policy began, one New York gallerist said the practice has been in place since Art Basel Miami Beach in 2021. Vincenzo de Bellis, the fair’s chief artistic officer and global director, confirmed that such a program was in place. “Our step-up model offers reduced fees for galleries participating in our main sectors for the first or second time,” de Bellis told  ARTnews  in an email. “It’s an important measure that encourages new exhibitors and supports them in establishing a presence within Art Basel’s global ...

Japan’s Okada Museum of Art is selling works from its collection because its founder, Kazuo Okada, needs to settle a $50 million legal bill that stems from his long-running feud with casino magnate Steve Wynn. Okada, an 83-year-old billionaire, is the former chairman of Tokyo-based Universal Entertainment Corp. Sotheby’s Hong Kong has landed the 125 works, which are set to hit the auction block on November 22. The collection includes Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic The Great Wave Off the Coast of Kanagawa (1830–32), a rare Qianlong “Eight Treasures” vase, and a pair of 16th-century six-panel screens by Kano Motonobu from the Muromachi period. Several works are expected to fetch several million dollars. Decades ago, Wynn and Okada became friends and founded the Las Vegas-based hotel-casino operator Wynn Resorts together in 2002. However, relations soured a few years later when they accused one another of questionable payments to public officials in Asia. In 2012, Okada was ousted as W...

Seven years ago, Naotaka Hiro was at the airport in Los Angeles when he received a harrowing text from his wife. “There’s someone underneath the house,” she wrote. “Someone’s coughing.” He abruptly canceled his flight to Japan and rushed home to his panicked spouse. Hiro ventured into the crawlspace beneath his home—and found nobody there at all. Perhaps it was a racoon, he thought to himself. But then he noticed a blanket. “Someone had been there,” he told me recently, showing no sign that the memory induced any anxiety. Rather than fleeing in fear, as most might, Hiro stuck around, intrigued by the thought that this claustrophobic crawlspace had acted as someone’s makeshift home. “I was like, Wow, this is so uncomfortable,” Hiro said. “But then, after 30 minutes, I was like, This must be okay. It was moist, quiet, and cold. I heard the sound of the other side: my dogs running around, my wife and son’s voices.” He compared the experience to being underneath the world. This all pro...

The Museum of Modern Art acquired Andrew Wyeth’s now-famous painting Christina’s World in 1949, a year after its creation. For decades it has been one of the most recognizable, popular—and enigmatic—artworks in MoMA’s collection. It’s about to go back on view at the museum, after an extensive and long-awaited conservation project, which MoMA’s senior collections photographer Adam Neese recently wrote about in great detail for the museum’s online magazine. The small genre painting, made with egg tempera over gesso on a Masonite board, is almost always on view in the “Picturing America” gallery on the museum’s 5th floor, sharing space with photographs by Berenice Abbott and Walker Evans and paintings by Edward Hopper and Charles Sheeler. It was removed from the gallery last year as part of a scheduled artwork rotation, giving conservators the opportunity to examine it closely in the lab for the first time in nearly three decades. The most recent photographs, from 1996, were taken on...

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. On Wednesday, Art Basel Paris opened for its official VIP preview, following Tuesday’s debut of Avant Première, a new invite-only preview for select clients. It was hard not to laugh a little at the signage for Wednesday’s event, still titled “First Choice.” One collector quipped to  ARTnews , “Shouldn’t it be Second Choice?” Top galleries had already logged a long list of sales by Tuesday evening, including Hauser & Wirth’s placement of a 1987 Gerhard Richter abstract for $23 million—the highest reported sale at the fair so far. But many said the new schedule functioned best as a staggered opening. “I think this is the most successful Art Basel Paris to date,” Paris-based adviser  Francesca Napoli  told  ARTnews . “Galleries have sold a huge number of major works...