Posts

Showing posts from September, 2026

Brazil’s Inhotim Marks 20 Years and Looks to a Future Beyond Its Founder

Image
Twenty years after it opened to the public, Inhotim is going through one of the most decisive transitions in its history. The contemporary art museum and botanical garden, which collector Bernardo Paz imagined on an unprecedented scale in the Brazilian mining town of Brumadinho, with individual pavilions for specific artists, monumental works, and paths stretching across 346 acres, recorded its highest annual attendance in 2025, welcoming 365,000 visitors. But Paz, who donated the land, galleries, and 326 works to Inhotim in 2022, is no longer involved in its operations. (He announced earlier this year that he is building another museum right next door, on land that Inhotim had planned to expand.) Adviser Allan Schwartzman, a cofounder of Inhotim and now chief curatorial adviser to the forthcoming Museu Bernardo Paz, described the two projects as “two halves of a body.” They share a founder, a border, and a similar ambition: to create experiences around artwork...

UK’s Ashmolean Museum Joins Forces with Samdani Art Foundation to Build Bangladeshi Art Collection

The Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford in the UK and the Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) based in Dhaka have joined forces on a new program focused on contemporary art from Bangladesh. The partnership will bring a Bangladeshi artist to Oxford each year and will also see the museum build a dedicated collection of contemporary Bangladeshi art. The first artist selected for the Ashmolean Samdani Visiting Artist program is Munem Wasif, a Dhaka-based artist and curator. Wasif is spending two weeks at the museum, where he’s working with its collections and archives. His practice brings together photography, moving image, archival materials, and found objects, often exploring ideas around impermanence, insecurity, and memory. During his time at the Ashmolean, Wasif will be looking at the colonial history of Bengal and considering how the museum’s collections might connect with his existing work. “For years, my practice has returned to the colonial history...

Senators Blumenthal and Cornyn File Amicus Brief in Case of Heirs Suing for Nazi-Looted Egon Schiele Works

Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and his Republican counterpart John Cornyn of Texas have filed an amicus (or “friend of the court”) brief defending their own Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act, which was signed into law in 2016, against claims of unconstitutionality by Austrian defendants seeking to hold on to Nazi-looted works by Egon Schiele. The senators filed the brief on September 18 in the Southern District of New York in the case Reif v. Republic of Austria, in which Timothy Reif, a descendant of Austrian Jewish performer Fritz Grünbaum, who was killed at the Dachau concentration camp in 1941, sued the government of Austria along with the Albertina Museum and the Leopold Museum, both in Vienna, for the return of a dozen artworks. Reif and fellow descendants David Fraenkel and Milos Vavra filed the case in December 2022, saying that Austria had become “a haven for traffickers in Nazi looted art” by imposing “impossible fin...

Artists Christine Sun Kim, Rodney McMillian, and Vincent Valdez Win MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grants

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced the 20 recipients of its annual MacArthur Fellowships, colloquially called “Genius Grants,” which comes with $800,000 in unrestricted funds. This year’s cohort includes four artists: Christine Sun Kim (based in Berlin), Rodney McMillian (Los Angeles), Vincent Valdez (Houston and San Antonio), and Chip Thomas (Flagstaff, Arizona). The subject of a recent Whitney Museum survey , Kim is known for her works that challenge institutions and audiences to confront their own ableism, particularly as it relates to Deafness. One of her best-known series is “Degrees of Deaf Rage” (2018–19), drawings in charcoal and oil pastel that which humorously and bitingly recounts some of these moments in which hearing privilege does not account for the lived realities of Deaf people. In 2020, she memorably performed the national anthem in American Sign Language at the Super Bowl, an experience she wrote about in t...

Whitney Union Sets Strike Date Days Before Major Roy Lichtenstein Show

Unionized staff at the Whitney Museum of Art will begin striking on Monday, October 5, if they cannot reach a contract agreement with the museum, Local 2110 UAW announced today. Workers at the Whitney Museum approved strike action earlier this month in a milestone vote held in conjunction with unions at the Brooklyn Museum and American Folk Art Museum. The Whitney union, however, is the first to put a deadline on the calendar—October 5, only three days before member and press previews open for the museum’s major Roy Lichtenstein retrospective (the show opens to the public October 11). The union’s first contract, ratified in 2023 after 16 months of bargaining, expired in June. The three-and-a-half-year contract covered approximately 200 workers and raised the wage floor significantly across the museum: staff members who made the minimum hourly rate of $17 in 2023 were subsequently paid $22, with a final salary bump to $24 per hour by 2025. For their...

Matchday Scoring Highlights: Wellington U16s (20) v Hawke’s Bay U16s (17)

The two teams met in round one of the 2026 Hurricanes Youth Council U16 competition at Lyndhurst Park, Tawa, on Saturday. A very even game that could have gone either way and duly went down to the last play with Manawatu just failing to come up with the try at the death after a torrid...

Sideline Conversions 28 September (rugby news and information to start the week)

Commitment – Halfback Milly Mackey looks to get the offload away to Baylee Meroiti in driving rain in the second half of their win over Tasman on Sunday. Photo: Tane Nathan/Kinetic Images. We are just about at the end of the line for representative 15s rugby for 2026, particularly in Wellington. The Wellington Pride have...

“From Monet and Manet to Money”: A Berlin Museum Spotlights the Dealer Who Made Impressionism an International Sensation

Image
Three women greet viewers to “Cassirer: Breakthrough of Impressionism” at Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie: Edgar Degas’s Miss La La (1879), Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Lise with a Parasol (1867), and Max Slevogt’s 1901 portrait of Cassirer’s own daughter, Suzanne Aimée Cassirer. Two French, one German, all three paintings are connected to Paul Cassirer, the Berlin dealer who is credited with bringing Impressionism to Germany, including many works now in the Nationalgalerie collections; and with supporting German artists who furthered the developments of the avant-garde. Too often, we try to separate the art market from the museum, as if esteemed collections of now-canonical art could be held apart from the money with which they were bought and the circumstances in which they were sold. This exhibition and the accompanying catalog openly trace the mechanisms by which art crossed borders and exchanged hands. Impressionism ushered in a turn from art academies and state coll...

WATCH: Tagata Pasifika 2026 Episode 22

Image
Tagata Pasifika | Television Series Despite the best efforts of organisers, Tuvalu’s Fakaapo Arts Festival was delayed due to bad weather. But this didn’t prevent Tagata Pasifika reporter Neueli Mauafu from spending time with the locals and those who travelled for this special celebration of Tuvaluan arts and culture.

The Best Booths at Independent 20th Century

It’s a big year for the Independent, the art world’s favorite contemporary art fair, and its more art-historically minded sister, Independent 20th Century. On the heels of Independent’s move earlier this year from Spring Studios in Tribeca to the much larger Pier 36 on the Lower East Side, its 20th Century edition, which opens to the public today, has also relocated, shifting from its Lower Manhattan location to Marcel Breuer’s 1960s brutalist building—formerly home to the Whitney Museum and now the headquarters of the Sotheby’s auction house—on Madison Avenue and East 75th Street. The move has allowed the fair to expand from 31 participating exhibitors in 2025 to this year’s 57 and to more approximate a museum experience, with discrete “galleries” rather than the usual corridors lined with booths. Despite nearly doubling in size, it remains viewer friendly, in contrast to the now tired, as well as bloated (with an exhausting 230-plus exhibitors), Armory Show...

Newly Speculated Goya Painting to Feature in 2028 Museo del Prado Show

Image
A painting that well-placed observers surmise was painted by Francisco de Goya will be on view in a forthcoming exhibition timed to commence 200 years after the celebrated Spanish artist’s death. After posing a question related to whether or not the work is truly by Goya, The Art Newspaper reported , “A full technical investigation of the work has yet to be completed but everyone involved, including Spain’s culture ministry and Madrid’s Museo del Prado, is operating under the assumption that the answer is ‘yes.’” The painting, titled El milagro de la aparición del eucaristo al San Pascual Bailón (The miracle of the appearance of the Eucharist to Saint Paschal Baylón), was bought at auction in Madrid by the Barcelona-based gallerist Artur Ramon in 2018, when it was attributed to Goya’s brother-in-law Francisco Bayeu. But during the global pandemic in 2020, Ramon hung the painting in his home and, after ample time aroudn it, started to suspect it might be...

Art Collector and Publisher Benedikt Taschen Lists Mid-Century Modern Beverly Hills Home for $25 M.

Image
ARTnews Top 200 collectors Benedikt and Lauren Taschen have spent the past eight years restoring the Adelman Residence, a 5,000-square-foot mid-century modern home designed by architects Thornton Abell and O’Neil Ford in 1956. The Taschens bought the home in 2018 (it was listed for $12,750,000), and, over the years, have refurbished the tennis court, original to the property from when it was part of Charlie Chaplin’s estate; the pool, the gardens, and the guest house; as well as all the interior architectural details like the cork floors, sliding Shoji screens, and a small wood-paneled elevator. It’s just been listed by Carolwood Estates for $25 million. Barnard Taschen founded Taschen Books in 1980. It is now one of the best-known publishers of coffee table-style art and design books, with the tag line “books for optimists.” As a collector, Taschen owns works by many artists of his own generation, among them Tom of Finland, Albert Oehlen, Jeff Koons, an...

Greek PM Rejects British Museum Comparison of Parthenon Marbles and Bayeux Tapestry

In August, British Museum Director Nicholas Cullinan told the Financial Times that the Bayeux Tapestry loan from France was “a very compelling example of international partnership,” and a successful, “reciprocal exchange.” That deal, which took years to form, might even pave the way for a Parthenon Marbles loan, he suggested. But in a provocative opinion piece in today’s The Guardian , Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis responded, seizing on Cullinan’s notion of comparing the Bayeux tapestry case to the Parthenon Marbles in the first place, to appeal to British readers who are now experiencing first-hand what it’s like to have their own cherished artifact return to where it was made, in one piece. “There are striking similarities between the two pieces. Both were conceived as single works, intended to be seen and understood as a whole. In the case of the Parthenon sculptures, that relationship is also architectural: they were created as inseparab...

Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich Returns Painting to Great-Grandson of Jewish Collector Who Fled Germany in 1938

Paul Laporte, a great-grandson of the well-to-do Sofie Heilbronner, who fled Munich for the United States in 1938, spent the past eight years working to reclaim a painting that belonged to his great-grandmother and had been lost as a result of Nazi persecution. The artwork, Music (Arcadian Scene) , 1892, by German painter Albert Lang was returned to Heilbronner’s heirs in a ceremony on September 22 at the German Embassy in Washington, DC. Before Tuesday, it had been held by the Bavarian State Painting Collections, a museum in Munich. A notice from the New York State Department of Financial Services, which administers the Holocaust Claims Processing Office, explains that Heilbronner packed up her artworks before leaving Germany, intending to sell them in New York. Instead, they were seized by the German government and auctioned off; the Lang painting was later discovered in a former Army barracks-turned-warehouse in Munich and eventually ended up in the Bavaria...

Pioneers of Rugby in Wellington 142: Nev MacEwan

Nev MacEwan was a leading player in Wellington club rugby and for Wellington representative teams throughout his career which spanned 1954-67. MacEwan was a lock or No. 8 and specialist lineout forward. He played all his rugby for the Athletic Club, the last three seasons as captain and coach, leading his team to Jubilee Cup...

Matchday Scoring Highlights: Wellington U16s v Wellington Co-ed Schools U18s

The Wellington Co-ed Schools U18s is a new representative team, with players selected from those Co-ed schools who are mostly playing in the non-Premiership grades in the College Sport Wellington competitions. A number of high profile players have come through and risen to the top of the game from these schools in the modern era,...

Codex Azcatitlan Goes on View in Mexico City, as Culture Ministry Continues Centuries-Long Quest for Repatriation

The Azcatitlan Codex, a rare manuscript about Aztec history and civilization, recently went on view at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, as the Mexican Culture Ministry continues its nearly two-century-long quest to have it repatriated. The illustrated document, created between the late 16th and early 17th centuries, is on loan from the National Library of France (BnF) as part of the celebrations for the bicentennial of diplomatic relationships between France and Mexico, Le Figaro reports . In exchange, the National Museum of Anthropology sent the Boturini Codex to the BnF. Each document will return to the country that currently owns it by the end of the year. On view until December 6, the manuscript is returning to Mexico for the first time since 1840. Across 20 folios, the codex “combines Mesoamerican pictographic traditions with elements of European writing” and “narrate[s] the Mexica migration from Aztlan to the founding of Mexico-T...

See 10 Paintings from the Met’s Landmark Chang Dai-Chien Acquisition

In what will surely make for a survey to remember, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired 38 works by the revered Chinese ink painter Chang Dai-chien. The trove includes studies from Dai-chien’s time at Dunhuang, an ancient Buddhist temple complex on the edge of the Gobi Desert, in the 1940s, as well as works from the 1960s and beyond, when his delicate landscapes and still-life unraveled into radiant abstractions. “Chang Dai-chien stands as one of the most important painters of the modern era. He combined a deep knowledge of classical Chinese culture with a transnational perspective to fashion a style of ink painting that was both locally rooted and connected to a wider global outlook,” Met director Max Hollein said in a statement, alluding to the artist’s three-decade artistic journey, from his birth and early life in China through South Asia—from India to Japan and Taiwan—and, in the 1970s, to his later years in Monterey, California. According t...

Matchday Scoring Highlights: Hawke’s Bay U18s (42) v Centurions U18s (41)

For the neutral observer, this match featured some cracking tries by both teams – and its all packaged up in the highlights below. Hawke’s Bay trailed the whole game but scored a try when it mattered with the final play of the game and kicked the winning conversion on fulltime. Earlier, the Centurions had got...

Sideline Conversions 21 September (some news and information to start the new week)

Horowhenua-Kapiti and Ories flanker David Leota-Johnson surges forward on Saturday, flanked by teammates, including Petone prop Kafa Katoa and HOBM No. 8 Mika Alaifatu. Photo: Stewart Baid. They beat Thames Valley 57-26.  Monday morning edition: The first week of spring and the start of daylight savings at the end of this week mean the 15s...

Rep. Joyce Beatty Asks Judge to Make ‘Crystal Clear’ Trump Cannot Demolish Kennedy Center in Wake of Viral Photo

When Getty photographer Brendan Smialowski captured a photo on Wednesday night of Air Force One after landing at Joint Base Andrews, outside Washington, D.C., it showed president Donald Trump in a red baseball cap reading a placard that seems to read “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.” This led to an emergency Thursday filing by Joyce Beatty, Democratic US Representative for Ohio’s Third Congressional District and an ex officio trustee of the Center, asking the federal judge in the ongoing Kennedy Center case “to make crystal clear that its order prohibits demolishing the structure.” On Wednesday, Trump said , “For me to go and fix it and subsidize it, I think the Trump administration should have recognition. If we don’t do that, it’s going to close and get ripped down.” “It goes without saying that demolishing the Kennedy Center’s main building would violate the Court’s preliminary injunction: Closure is both a prelude to and the necessary consequence of demol...

New Discoveries at Ancient Egyptian Fort Include Ceremonial Burial of a Horse

New archaeological discoveries at Tell Al-Abqain in Beheira are revealing details about life within the ancient Egyptian fortress, the country’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced on Wednesday. According to the ministry, they also underscore Tell Al-Abqain’s importance as a military stronghold during the New Kingdom period (1570–1069 BCE), when it was established to protect Egypt against incursions by Libyan tribes. The finds, made by an Egyptian archaeological mission, include a residential complex, stelae, and, most intriguingly, the possibly ceremonial burial of a horse. In a statement, Egypt’s minister of tourism and antiquities Sherif Fathy emphasized that the discoveries not only shed light on the fortress’s military function but on the daily lives of its inhabitants. Chief among the discoveries is a large mudbrick housing complex connected to the southern entrance of the fortress. In its northern section excavators found a main street ru...

Stockholm’s Moderna Museet Appoints Cédric Fauq as Curator of Contemporary International Art

The Moderna Museet in Stockholm named Cédric Fauq as its next curator of contemporary international art, to start in the role on December 1. He is currently the chief curator and head of programs and collections at Capc Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, and he worked previously as a curator at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo and Nottingham Contemporary in England. Credits of Fauq’s in Bordeaux include the group exhibition “Blackground: murmures des mornes,” “Rammellzee Alphabeta Sigma (Side B),” and Trevor Yeung’s “Garden of the Nine Suns.” He was a member of the Turner Prize jury in 2023 and teaches at HEAD in Geneva and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. In a statement, Moderna Museet director Tone Hansen said, “Cédric joins us at a pivotal moment as the museum prepares for its next chapter, where art, public art, architecture, and design come together. His experience, curiosity, and engagement with key artistic questions of our time will be a true asse...

Hirshhorn Museum to Install ‘Eternally Unswimmable’ Pool by Elmgreen & Dragset in Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.

When it reopens in a redesigned state at the end of October, the Hirshhorn Museum’s Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., will be home to a curious new work by the Berlin-based Scandinavian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset—in the form of a vacant swimming pool. “Upended, empty, and eternally unswimmable, the 28-foot-tall sculpture emblematizes the artists’ mastery of displacement—excerpting familiar objects from people’s surroundings and presenting them as new and strange,” reads a press release announcing the museum’s new acquisition. The outdoor sculpture—“cast in stainless steel with a lacquered cyan interior, and furnished with a diving board, ladder, and lights”—is titled Eight and counts as the fourth such swimming pool in a series that Elmgreen & Dragset has installed in other locations including Miami and New York. The Hirshhorn has deemed it “a crowning installation” for its Sculpture Garden, which is scheduled to reopen October 31 after a ...

Sharif Bey Wins Inaugural Spector Craft Prize

The newly launched Spector Craft Prize has announced its inaugural winner: Sharif Bey, an artist and educator based in Syracuse, New York. The Spector Craft Prize was established last year by the Spector Family Foundation to “reinforce American craft as a vital and enduring art form while creating new pathways for artists at every stage of their careers,” according to a release. It is being awarded in collaboration with Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas. Curator and craft scholar Glenn Adamson served as an adviser on the prize. “It is encouraging that there is now a prestigious award dedicated to the impact of American craft, and I am honored to be [the] inaugural winner of the Spector Craft Prize,” Bey told ARTnews by email. “While contemporary craft is not always distinct from the evocative works we encounter in the world of contemporary art, innovative works grounded in material histories, as well as traditions of making and using objects, can ...