Know What's Happening in Art
Know What's Happening in Art
Angela Westwater recalls legendary 1985 SoHo dinner that united art icons
In a recent interview, gallerist Angela Westwater remembers a 1985 dinner at Mr. Chow that gathered Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe and David Hockney. At the time she was ten years into running the Sperone Westwater Gallery in SoHo. She contrasts the informal, community‑focused gatherings of that era with today’s collector‑driven events.
Albert Scopin’s newly uncovered archive showcases 35 vivid photographs of New York’s iconic Chelsea Hotel in the 1970s. The images blend double‑exposures, saturated reds, and ghost‑like overlays that capture the hotel’s bohemian energy and street‑level drama. Scopin documents everything from roller‑skating patrons in silver coats to graffiti‑covered bedroom walls, offering a rare visual diary of a cultural hotspot. The gallery, now online, invites art lovers and historians to explore a forgotten slice of urban history.
London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery has opened the first UK exhibition devoted to Estonia’s modernist pioneer Konrad Mägi, showcasing more than 60 paintings, many never displayed abroad. Curated by Kathleen Soriano, the show arranges the works chronologically, tracing Mägi’s evolution from his...
The Stedelijk Museum Schiedam has opened "Yves Klein and His Artist Family," showcasing 30 works by Yves alongside more than 40 pieces by his parents Fred Klein and Marie Raymond and his widow Rotraut Klein‑Moquay. Curated by Tijs Visser of...
Yang Fudong’s solo show "Fragrant River" at Beijing’s UCCA showcases 30 video works spanning more than eight hours, opening with the five‑channel installation *Young Man, Young Man* (2025). The exhibition weaves nostalgic vignettes of 1980s‑90s hutong life, furniture‑industry imagery from...
Muslum Teke’s solo exhibition "In‑between Spaces" opened at Versus Arts in East London from March 7‑14, showcasing paintings that hover between figurative portraiture and abstract expressionism. The canvases feature fragmented faces and stacked eyes, obscuring identity while emphasizing raw emotion. Critics...
Maggie O'Farrell's bestselling novel *Hamnet* has been transformed into a stage play that opened this week at Washington’s Shakespeare Theatre Company after a successful Chicago run. The production, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti, centers on Agnes Shakespeare as she battles to...
The interview with creative technologist Shimin (Simi) Gu explores her immersive project Journey Into Self and the broader evolution of interactive art. Gu explains how her NYU training and early interactive experiments led her to prioritize emotional pacing and seamless...
Cork Street Galleries, an initiative of The Pollen Estate, has announced a dual role as Supporting Partner of the British Council and commissioner of artist Lubaina Himid for its 2026/27 Banners Commission. Himid’s banner installation, "Reading the Label," will debut in...
The High Desert Art Fair entered its fifth year in Pioneertown, converting the historic motel’s rooms into galleries for 20 galleries and publishers. Headlined by Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh, the event also featured a DJ set by Shepard Fairey, panels, meditation,...
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum launched Access O’Keeffe, a free online portal that digitizes every known work by the iconic American modernist, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, and archival materials. The platform offers high‑resolution images, searchable metadata, and tools to browse by...
GRIMM Gallery in New York is showcasing Vignettes & Mutations, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles‑based painter Eric White running through May 2, 2026. It marks White’s fifth solo show with the gallery and revisits two decades of his work by extracting and...
In this episode of Who Art Ed?, host Kyle Wood talks with fellow art‑history podcaster Gavin Whitehead about his new limited‑series "Raven," which investigates the life of Raven Chanticleer and his African‑American Wax Museum in Harlem. Whitehead explains how he...
The newly released 240‑page volume *The Art of Antiquing in France* offers a step‑by‑step roadmap for sourcing, evaluating, and preserving antique paintings across French brocantes, flea markets, and auction houses. It stresses the importance of cultivating relationships with dealers whose...
The White House reportedly installed a Christopher Columbus statue made from the remains of a toppled sculpture, yet none of the eight source articles contain information about the installation, leaving key facts undisclosed.
Art Central 2026 returns to Hong Kong Harbourfront with 117 galleries and over 500 artists, highlighted by UOB's large‑scale ink installation "White Mirror – The Vista of the Inner Worlds" by Ling Pui Sze. The fair expands its regional reach...
John Zieman’s latest exhibition, "Weaponized Beauty," opened at Leonovich Gallery in Chelsea, showcasing three experimental videos and eleven aluminum photo panels that explore ecological preservation and personal safety. The dual‑channel piece OTOH directly addresses climate disaster imagery, while the titular...
Award‑winning sculptor David Worthington, in partnership with John Robertson Architects, Marble Projects and Bill Amberg Studio, has installed four monumental travertine “boulder benches” at 20 Gresham Street in the City of London. The benches, carved from single blocks of Tuscan...
The New Museum announced an $82 million expansion that will double its physical footprint in Manhattan. The project, slated to begin later this year, aims to add new gallery space, public areas, and a flagship exhibition titled “New Humans,” signaling a...
Marcarson’s solo pop‑up exhibition "Rascal" opens at 243 Bowery in New York from March 24 to March 31, 2026, with an opening reception on March 26. Curated by Wilhelmina von Blumenthal, the show occupies two floors near the New Museum and blends Arte Povera, Duchampian,...
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris is hosting its final Art Deco exhibition, showcasing over 1,000 jewels, furniture, and objects, including a dedicated Cartier room. The show highlights the iconic Cartier Panthère motif, which evolved from a 1914 wristwatch...
The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened ‘Raphael: Sublime Poetry,’ a sweeping retrospective that brings together 237 paintings, drawings, tapestries and a fresco fragment from 60 institutions worldwide. Highlights include the Alba Madonna on loan from the National Gallery of Art,...
Japanese‑American ink artist Alia Sugawara opens her first solo exhibition outside Japan, "Konketsu," at Otherthings by The Shophouse in Hong Kong. The show runs from late March to May 10 and features paper‑based scrolls, screens and collages created with fashion designer Jun...
The Christie’s auction of Jack Kerouac’s original "On the Road" scroll fetched over $12 million, turning a Beat Generation relic into a luxury collectible. This sale underscores a wider pattern of 1950s‑60s countercultural artifacts being absorbed by the high‑end art market....
Agosto Machado, a seminal performance and visual artist, died on March 21, 2026 at age 86. Over six decades he was a fixture of New York’s underground scene, performing at venues like La MaMa and the Mudd Club and standing...
Tomás Saraceno and New Taipei City’s deputy mayor Zhu Ti‑zhi inaugurated the international sustainability exhibition “共織宇宙” on March 21. The show runs until September 6, featuring recycled‑plastic installations, solar‑powered flight experiments and data‑driven sound works that fuse art, science and climate advocacy.
French animator Ugo Bienvenu’s eco‑fable *Arco* earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, showcasing a visually striking blend of Studio Ghibli‑style artistry and hopeful climate storytelling. Produced on a €9 million budget, the film follows a 2932 boy who time‑travels...
Grant Sanderson’s latest video dissects M.C. Escher’s “Print Gallery,” highlighting its status as perhaps the most mathematically rich of Escher’s works. The analysis blends artistic description with rigorous mathematics, drawing on de Smit and Lenstra’s formal treatment of the piece’s geometry....
Correct: In culture, fame should not be the default; it should be a choice. "True Banksy or Ferrante fans do not care about their real identities. On the contrary, they collude in the mystery." The Guardian view on anonymity in art:...
Great article by @marthagimbel on @bloomberg. I studied the French Revolution at Sciences Po AND Ecole du Louvre. What did the art of the time tell us about the economics, politics and policy? Quite a bit actually. https://t.co/hjXaHomwVN
Georgina Adam’s new book warns the art market that attracting millennials and Gen Z is essential for its survival. While Christie’s claims a third of its 2025 buyers are under 45, these younger participants are volatile and less loyal. The book...
For this episode of our #podcast, @annagammansart & I speak with Founder of Close Gallery Freeny Yianni and Sales Director Richard Scarry about having a gallery in Somerset, being sustainable and curating and creating with integrity >> https://t.co/I8IsSKiLvu #LondonArtCritic
The Grand Palais in Paris has opened 'Matisse 1941‑1954', a major retrospective featuring 320 works from the artist’s final years. Curator Claudine Grammont argues the show disproves the notion that Matisse abandoned painting for cut‑outs, underscoring a burst of creativity...
Mark Bode, a New York graffiti pioneer and son of underground comics legend Vaughn Bode, unveiled a large mural in Tokyo’s Shibuya district on the Manhattan Records building, introducing his father’s iconic characters to Japanese audiences. The piece marks the...
Japanese baker konel_bread has turned ordinary loaves into visual surprises by embedding colorful, cartoon‑style creatures throughout the dough. Each slice reveals the same tiny figure, creating a consistent hidden image from end to end. The technique, which blends precise dough...
So happy to see the Bay Lights back, great work by leo_villareal and @illuminatethearts. Somehow, this new version is even more beautiful than the last one.
The Taller Boricua Gallery will host "Welcome to Harlem USA," a solo photography exhibition by Ruben Natal‑San Miguel curated by Nitza Tufiño, running from March 12 to May 17, 2026. Natal‑San Miguel’s twenty‑five‑year archive captures Harlem’s streets, storefronts, murals, and residents with journalistic precision. The show highlights the...
The Faculty of Philosophy at Complutense University in Madrid hosted a four‑day conference titled “Al Encuentro de lo Real,” uniting scholars and artists around art and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Sessions spanned panels, performances, and debates, with a strong focus on the...
Ferha Farooqui is my latest artist inspired by London and you can read more about her work in this post via @Londonist https://t.co/d8LaJt4jOC
Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro announced that the city will close Russia's national pavilion at the 2026 Biennale if it is used for propaganda, a warning that pits cultural diplomacy against political pressure. The statement comes as the EU threatens funding...
In the midst of sitting, writing, teaching, I have been doing Haiku Paintings, small paintings of the seasons. Three bare winter paintings, two bright summer paintings, and four night fall paintings. I have yet to paint spring. But here in...
The New Museum in New York reopened on March 21 with a $82 million, seven‑story OMA addition that adds 10,000 sq ft of gallery space. The expansion, described as a second building on an expanded campus, launches the inaugural show “New Humans: Memories of...
A new wave of folk musicians is reviving protest songs on TikTok, turning rapid‑response songwriting into a digital rallying point. Artists like Joseph Terrell and Jesse Welles post verses within days of headline events, amassing millions of views and followers....
London-based artist LR Vandy presents her first solo museum exhibition, “Rise,” at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in collaboration with October Gallery. The show features large rope‑based sculptures both inside the gallery and on the park grounds, including the indoor centerpiece “A...
British painter Cecily Brown reveals that her canvases often emerge in a flurry of rapid strokes, leaving her unsure mid‑process whether the work is succeeding. She describes a practice driven by instinct, where composition evolves organically rather than through meticulous...
The blog’s new "Revealing" series spotlights artist Michael Orr, known for provocative stamp poetry that tackles anti‑war themes. Orr’s unconventional process—using cookies, debris, and putty to create one‑of‑a‑kind ink designs—has inspired the author’s own street‑level art hunts. The post links...
MOCA Jacksonville is hosting Whitney Oldenburg’s retrospective “Left Behind,” featuring large‑scale sculptures built from everyday waste. The exhibition, running November 2025 through April 2026, aims to confront over‑consumption and ecological impact through provocative material installations. Under director Caitlín Doherty, the museum has deepened ties...
Alphonse Mucha’s 1896 poster “Spring,” part of his celebrated Seasons series, showcases the hallmark elegance and ornamental flair of Art Nouveau. The work depicts a youthful female figure surrounded by botanical motifs that embody the vernal season, reflecting Mucha’s signature blend...
The 2026 Whitney Biennial opened without a unifying theme, opting for vague moods rather than a direct political stance. While the roster is more internationally diverse than ever, the show largely sidesteps the nation’s current crises, offering only subdued, contemplative...
Maxwell Graham’s dual exhibition spotlights Louise Lawler’s arrow installation and Hans Haacke’s 2005 “Untitled #1,” both interrogating political rhetoric and institutional memory. Across town, Isa Genzken’s “Disco Soon (Ground Zero)” reimagines the 9/11 site as a flamboyant gay bar, contrasting Haacke’s somber critique. Meanwhile,...
