Recently Restored Castle in Norwich Among Five Institutions Shortlisted for UK's Top Museum Prize
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, fresh from a £27.5 m (£34 m) redevelopment that reopened in August 2025, joins four other institutions on the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2026 shortlist. The shortlist also features the National Gallery, the Fitzwilliam Museum, The Box in Plymouth and the V&A East Storehouse, with the winner set to receive £120,000 (£150 k) and the other finalists £20,000 (£25 k) each. The National Gallery is highlighted for its £85 m (£106 m) Sainsbury Wing upgrade and a £350 m (£438 m) extension plan, while The Box reports a £244 m (£305 m) boost to Plymouth’s economy. The prize underscores the sector’s focus on visitor experience, heritage revitalisation and regional economic impact.
Drum and Trumpet with Human Skulls Attached Complicate Plan for Restitution From Los Angeles to Ghana
The Fowler Museum at UCLA holds a 19th‑century Asante drum and ivory trumpet seized by British troops, each bearing a human skull—a male skull on the trumpet and a female skull on the drum. While the museum successfully restituted seven...
Dallas Art Fair Brings Texas's Relationship-Driven Collecting Community Into Focus
The Dallas Art Fair has settled into a steadier rhythm, maintaining roughly 90 exhibitors and seeing only 31 galleries drop out compared with over 40 in previous cycles. Local collectors, who purchase sparingly but deliberately, treat the fair as the...
English Museums Should only Charge Tourists if Digital ID Checks in Place, UK Politician Says
Labour peer Baroness Margaret Hodge has revived a proposal to charge overseas visitors for entry to England’s national museums, but she insists it should only proceed once a universal digital ID system is in place. She estimates the fees would...
The Big Review: Rothko in Florence ★★★★★
Palazzo Strozzi, San Marco and the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana are hosting "Rothko in Florence," a three‑venue exhibition that juxtaposes 70 of Mark Rothko’s canvases with Fra Angelico frescoes and other Renaissance works. Co‑curated by Rothko’s son Christopher, the show draws from...
Toronto Biennial Takes Waterways as Inspiration for Its Fourth Edition
The Toronto Biennial of Art returns this autumn with its fourth edition, "Things Fall Apart," running from September 26 to December 20. The show features 30 artists, including 17 new commissions, and for the first time extends beyond the Greater Toronto Area...
A Brush With... Hurvin Anderson—Podcast
Hurvin Anderson joins Ben Luke for a deep‑dive podcast, unpacking the writers, musicians, and artists that shape his practice. He explains how he transforms personal and found photographs into layered canvases that echo memory and diaspora. Anderson also discusses his...
Art Dubai Announces Updated Gallery List for Postponed 2026 Edition
Art Dubai has shifted its 2026 edition to May 15‑17, postponing the event by a month due to the US‑Israel war in Iran. The fair will feature 50 regional and international galleries and introduces a revised fee model that waives...
'It Was My Job to Create the View': US Artist Liza Lou on Making Colourful Works in Her Windowless Warehouse
Liza Lou, the California‑based artist who first gained fame for her five‑year bead‑covered installation *Kitchen*, is back to working alone in a windowless warehouse, fusing oil paint with glass beads to create colour‑driven canvases. The stark, dark studio forces her...
Olafur Eliasson Stages Public Wake for the Great Salt Lake in Utah
Olafur Eliasson installed "A symphony of disappearing sounds for the Great Salt Lake" in Memory Grove Park, Utah, from March 26 to April 4, offering a free, ten‑day multimedia experience. The work projected shifting light onto a three‑storey illuminated sphere...
Defiant Women and Daring Paintings: Emin, Webster and Wylie Create a Buzz in the UK's Exhibition Calendar
Three veteran British women artists dominate the UK exhibition calendar, each mounting a high‑profile survey that redefines late‑career creativity. Rose Wylie, 92, became the first female painter to occupy the Royal Academy’s main galleries, showcasing massive, eclectic canvases that blend...
Staff at Goldsmiths Art College Plan Industrial Action Ahead of Redundancies
Goldsmiths, University of London’s flagship art college, announced a two‑year "Future Goldsmiths" restructuring that aims to deliver roughly $27.5 million in savings by 2027. The plan builds on earlier programmes that generated about $9.5 million and $20.1 million in savings, but also revealed...
France's Château La Coste Hosts Four Decades of Work by Designer Marc Newson
Australian designer Marc Newson’s 1994 Olympic sculpture “Electra” has been restored and installed at Château La Coste in Provence, where it will be on view until June 21. The piece joins a curated survey of four decades of Newson’s work, displayed in Oscar Niemeyer’s...
Berlin Exhibition Focuses in on Women Photographers of the Bauhaus
The Museum für Fotografie in Berlin is mounting *New Woman, New Vision: Women Photographers of the Bauhaus*, featuring roughly 300 photographs by 29 women linked to the historic Bauhaus and its Chicago offshoot. Curator Kristin Bartels aims to dismantle the lingering myth that...
France’s New Restitution Law Passes Final Vote
The French parliament voted unanimously on 13 April 2026 to adopt a framework law governing the restitution of cultural objects taken during the colonial era. The legislation requires a state‑initiated request and a bilateral scientific committee to certify that items were...
FKA Twigs and Brian Eno Among Artists Included in the Vatican's Sound-Based 2026 Venice Biennale Pavilion
The Vatican’s Holy See pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale will showcase 24 artists, including Brian Eno, FKA Twigs, Patti Smith and poet‑musician Precious Okoyomon. Titled “The Ear is the Eye of the Soul,” the exhibition interprets the life of Saint Hildegard of Bingen...
As Cuban Crisis Deepens, Diaspora Artists Have a Message of Compassion
The Piero Atchugarry Gallery’s exhibition *Exile* uses a salvaged, bullet‑scarred raft to embody the trauma of Cuban migrants risking a 93‑mile crossing to the U.S. Artists Antonia Wright and Ruben Millares combine sculpture, cyanotypes and silkscreen prints to shift viewers...
New Bienal De Yucatán to Spotlight Mexican Region’s Growing Art Scene
Mérida, Yucatán’s capital, will host the inaugural Bienal de Yucatán from 26 November 2026 to 28 February 2027. French‑born patron Catherine Petitgas, who runs Proyecto Y, is the driving force behind the event, while Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas serves as artistic director. The biennial follows a...
Stealing the Show: Mona Lisa Heist Inspires Andrew Lloyd Webber Musical
Andrew Lloyd Webber is developing a new musical that dramatizes the 1911 theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa by Louvre employee Vincenzo Peroggia. The story will trace the painting’s three‑year disappearance and its recovery in Italy, a narrative that has fascinated...
Chicago’s Neighbors and Barely Fairs Show the Strengths of Smaller, Alternative Formats
Chicago’s spring art calendar now includes two intimate fairs that contrast with the massive Expo Chicago. Barely Fair, running through April 19 in McKinley Park, showcases 32 exhibitors in 20‑square‑foot booths with works priced from $150 to $8,000, emphasizing experimental formats. Neighbors,...
SP-Arte Underscores Latin America’s Resilient Rise Amid Global Market Recalibration
The 22nd SP‑Arte fair opened in São Paulo’s Ibirapuera Park, drawing over 180 galleries, design studios and cultural institutions. Brazilian galleries reported a 21% year‑on‑year sales surge in 2025, underscoring the region’s resilience amid global market recalibration. The fair expanded its...
UK National Gallery to Recoup £2m a Year After Completing Staff ‘Voluntary Exit Scheme’
London’s National Gallery announced it will save roughly $2.5 million a year through a voluntary exit scheme, helping to address an anticipated $10.3 million deficit. The scheme delivers $1.9 million in savings from departing staff and $625 k from a recruitment pause, but the...
Marcel Duchamp at MoMA, Dorothea Tanning Book, Leonora Carrington at the Freud Museum, London—Podcast
The Museum of Modern Art opens the first major U.S. survey of Marcel Duchamp’s career since 1973, with a later run at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Yale University Press releases a new monograph, *Dorothea Tanning: A Surrealist World*, priced at $45....
Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center Has Art at Its Core
The Obama Presidential Center, a $850 million eight‑storey museum on Chicago’s South Side, will open on Juneteenth, June 19, 2026. Designed vertically to preserve Jackson Park’s landscape, the campus integrates a new library branch and public spaces. Ahead of the opening, the Center...
Readymades, Replicas, Reiterations: MoMA Show Explores Marcel Duchamp the Inventor
The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Philadelphia Art Museum have opened a long‑awaited retrospective on Marcel Duchamp, the first major U.S. survey of his work in 53 years. Curated by Ann Temkin, Michelle Kuo and Matthew Affron, the show presents...
London’s V&A Launches Webpage Exploring Provenance of Its Objects
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has unveiled a new online collections hub titled “How have objects come to be in the V&A?”. The site, launched on International Provenance Research Day, aggregates existing research and new essays on objects...
Philadelphia Art Museums Celebrate America's 250th Anniversary with Blockbuster Two-Venue Show
Philadelphia’s two‑venue exhibition *A Nation of Artists* celebrates the nation’s 250th anniversary, uniting the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The show features over 1,000 paintings, photographs, sculptures and decorative objects, spanning colonial portraits...
Robilant and Voena Gallery Founders Part Ways to Start Separate Ventures with Their Children
After 22 years together, co‑founders Edmond di Robilant and Marco Voena have dissolved their partnership to launch two independent family‑run galleries, Robilant and Voena. The next generation steps into leadership, with Michele di Robilant taking the director role at Robilant...
The Art of Technology Jostles for Position in Venues Both New and Historic
Canyon, a new 40,000 sq ft Manhattan institution founded by video collector Robert Rosenkranz, will open this autumn to showcase moving‑image, sound and performance art. Unlike traditional museums, it will not hold a permanent collection but will program rapid 18‑24‑month exhibitions, borrowing...
April Book Bag: From a Matthew Wong Catalogue to a History of Dogs in Art
The April Book Bag spotlights four new art‑focused titles. "The Dog’s Gaze: A Visual History" (400 pp, $45) surveys canine depictions from the Paleolithic era to contemporary works. "Divine Presence" (137 pp, €68 ≈ $75) examines marble symbolism in 14th‑ and 15th‑century paintings, while...
Pressing Issues: The Vital Role of Printmaking in the History of Art
Holly Black’s new Yale University Press volume, *The Story of Printmaking: A Global History of Art*, offers the first comprehensive survey of printed images from ninth‑century East Asia to 21st‑century digital techniques. Drawing on her London College of Printing training,...
The Story of London's Great Exhibition, as Seen Through the Eyes of Artists
Julius Bryant’s new volume examines the 1851 Great Exhibition through its visual record—paintings, prints, photographs and ephemera—rather than traditional social analysis. The book highlights Prince Albert’s youthful leadership, the rapid construction of the Crystal Palace, and the involvement of 13,937...
A New Istanbul Gallery Is Offering an Outlet for Iran’s Artists
On Feb. 28, Shiva Zahed Gallery launched in Istanbul’s Pera district, providing a rare physical venue for Iranian contemporary artists amid escalating US‑Iran tensions. The inaugural exhibition, “Echoes,” presents installation artist Shaqayeq Arabi and renowned painter Fereydoun Ave, whose work...
‘It’s Essential for Understanding What Is Going on in Ukraine’: New Exhibition Explores Wartime Limb Loss
Ukrainian artist Nikita Kadan opens "A New Integrity" at Kyiv's Pavilion 13, featuring a mid‑air installation of prosthetic limbs synchronized with a soundscape and veteran testimonies. The work, commissioned by the non‑profit RIBBON International, gives voice to amputated soldiers while avoiding...
George Costakis, Collector and Saviour of Soviet Avant-Garde Art, Celebrated with Athens Exhibition
Greek‑born collector George Costakis amassed thousands of Russian and Soviet avant‑garde works while navigating Stalinist repression, later relocating a substantial portion to Greece. His collection, which seeded the Museum of Modern Art in Thessaloniki, is returning to the National Gallery...
London Galleries Edel Assanti and Emalin Both Announce Expansions
London’s Edel Assanti is opening a 450‑sq‑ft boutique space on 11 Bury Street, bringing its total exhibition capacity to roughly eight shows a year and debuting with three Lonnie Holley quilts priced at $55,000 each. At the same time, Emalin is...
Art Cologne Heads to the Beach with Revived Mallorca Edition
Art Cologne is returning to the Balearic Islands with a revived Mallorca edition, Art Cologne Palma Mallorca, scheduled for 9‑12 April at the Palau de Congressos de Palma. The fair, which first tried a Spanish outpost in 2007, now features 88...
A Brush With... Lorna Simpson—Podcast
Lorna Simpson sits down with Ben Luke to discuss the writers, musicians, filmmakers and artists who have shaped her practice. She explains how her conceptual photography and recent found‑image paintings interrogate identity, history and the archive. Simpson describes a balance...
Irreconcilable Differences: Canadian Cultural Tourism to the US Experiences a Steep Decline
Canadian tourism to the United States has slumped by more than 30% in 2025, driven by President Trump’s annexation rhetoric, renewed tariffs and a perception of unwelcomeness. New York City saw Canadian arrivals fall from 983,000 in 2024 to 800,000...
Monumental 37ft-Long Indian Scroll Goes on Public View for the First Time at Yale Center for British Art
After a two‑year conservation project, the 37‑foot Lucknow scroll—an early 19th‑century Indian watercolor panorama—has been placed on public view at Yale Center for British Art. The scroll, created between 1821 and 1826, is featured in the “Painters, Ports and Profits”...
Canada Returns 11 Artefacts to Turkey in the First Repatriation Between the Countries
Canada returned eleven Ottoman‑era artefacts to Turkey, marking the first official repatriation between the two countries. The collection includes seven manuscript pages, two printed work pages and two modern calligraphy pieces dating from the 17th to 19th centuries, seized by...
Santiago Museum, Set on Fire During 2020 Protests, Reopens
Chile’s Violeta Parra Museum reopened on March 24 after a $1 million restoration funded by its fire‑insurance policy. The guitar‑shaped building suffered three arson attacks during the 2020 nationwide protests, though its structure remained intact. Director Denise Elphick oversaw the rehabilitation, adding...
Should English Museums Charge Tourists? Plus, Raphael at the Met and Senga Nengudi at the Whitechapel Gallery—Podcast
The UK government responded to a report proposing that England’s national museums charge tourists for entry, sparking a heated debate over free access versus new revenue streams. In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened "Raphael: Sublime Poetry," the first...
Gagosian Chooses Paris Location to Present Three Important Late Paintings by Francis Bacon
Gagosian will showcase three late Francis Bacon paintings—*Study from the Human Body — Figure in Movement* (1982), *Study from the Human Body* (1986) and *Man at a Washbasin* (1989‑1990)—at its Paris gallery from April 11 to May 30, 2026. The...
Keep It in the Family: How Johannes Vermeer’s Paintings Remained Out of View for so Long
Andrew Graham‑Dixon’s new biography reveals that Maria de Knuijt and Pieter Claesz van Ruijven commissioned most of Johannes Vermeer’s output, amassing a collection of about 20 of his paintings. After their daughter Magdalena died in 1682, a notary inventory showed the...
An Expert's Guide to Alexander Calder: Six Must-Read Books on the US Sculptor
The Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris is hosting a major exhibition of nearly 300 Alexander Calder works, tracing the evolution of his iconic mobiles and broader practice. Curators Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer paired the show with a curated...
A Brush with… Karen Archey, Head of Curatorial at Düsseldorf's K20 and K21 Museums
Karen Archey, head of curatorial at Düsseldorf’s K20 and K21 museums, highlighted the recent acquisition of Alice Neel’s politically charged 1965 painting “The Great Society.” She reflected on her 2007 “Grand Tour” of the Venice Biennale, Art Basel, Documenta, and Skulptur Projekte,...
New York’s Jewish Museum Opens Paul Klee Exhibition without Its Centrepiece
The Jewish Museum in New York opened its Paul Klee exhibition on March 20, but the centerpiece, Angelus Novus, is absent because the original remains in Israel amid disrupted air transport caused by the Iran war. An authorized facsimile now occupies a recessed...
‘The Sharp Perception only a Woman Can Bring to Observing Other Women’: Dorothy Bohm’s Photographs Go on Show at Lee...
Dorothy Bohm’s photography will be showcased in the new "About Women" exhibition at Farleys House & Gallery, opening on 2 April and running through 26 July. The show presents seven decades of her female‑focused black‑and‑white and colour work, tracing a career that...
Mexico’s Art Community Calls for Greater Transparency in Management of Treasured Collection
The Gelman Collection, one of the world’s most significant 20th‑century Mexican art holdings, was purchased by the Monterrey‑based Zambrano family in 2023 and placed under Banco Santander’s stewardship as the Gelman Santander Collection. An open letter signed by 350 cultural...