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Imelda Cajipe Endaya Becomes First Woman Named National Artist of the Philippines

Filipina artist Imelda Cajipe Endaya was named to the Order of National Artists of the Philippines for Visual Arts on September 1, becoming the first woman to receive the honor in its fifty-four-year history. The order was established in 1972 to recognize those who have significantly contributed to the country’s arts. Born in 1949, Endaya […]

Polly WatsonSep 25, 2026

New York Returns 36 Antiquities Worth $5 Million to Syria

On September 23, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced that 36 trafficked or looted antiquities—collectively valued at over $5 million—would be returned to the people of Syria. The repatriation ceremony coincided with the visit of Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The list of […]

Theo BelciSep 25, 2026

Evan Lincoln reports from NYC’s September openings

Fall festivities from Gladstone to Tenko Presents and Jenny's

Thomas PatierSep 25, 2026

National Gallery of Victoria Staffer Accused of Siphoning $8 Million from Museum

A former senior employee at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Australia is said to have drained $8 million from the institution’s coffers over a six-year span, The Guardian reports. The staffer, who has not been publicly named, is said to have spent the money on mobile phones, which he purchased through a museum […]

Polly WatsonSep 25, 2026

Artistic Director, Theme Announced for Fifth Thailand Biennale

The Thai Ministry of Culture has named jiradej-pornpilai meemalai: BAAN NOORG as the artistic director of the Fifth Thailand Biennale, ArtReview reports. Emily Chin-Jie Lee, Gesyada Siregar, and Tyuki Imamura will serve as curators of the event, to take place December 2027 to April 2028 in Rayong, on the east coast of the Gulf of […]

Polly WatsonSep 25, 2026

Cultural Workers Protest Massive Cuts to Colombia’s Arts Funding

Artists, students, and cultural workers gathered outside of Colombia’s Ministry of Culture in Bogotá on September 21 to protest a proposed 30% cut to the cultural budget in 2027 and a suspension of national arts awards. “The effects of decisions that disrupt the country’s cultural sector are now being felt by thousands of arts workers,” […]

Theo BelciSep 25, 2026

Asian American Arts Alliance Announces Grant Recipients

Asian American Arts Alliance (A4) announced the thirty-eight recipients of the last round of its A4 Arts Fund, which distributes $500,000 to arts and cultural organizations that support Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. Grants are awarded in the amount of $10,000 or $15,000 to organizations with annual budgets under $500,000. A4 received applications […]

Theo BelciSep 25, 2026

Jonathan Abbott to Lead Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, has named Jonathan Abbott as its new director and CEO. Abbott arrives to the institution from public media company GBH, the country’s largest producer of multiplatform content for PBS and partner to NPR and PRX (Public Radio Exchange), where he spent fifteen years as director. He succeeds interim […]

Polly WatsonSep 24, 2026

Savior Complex: Populist Pugilism at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

“Where did George Lucas get this chip on his shoulder?”

Bryan BarcenaSep 24, 2026

Getty Acquires Long-Lost Velázquez Painting

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has purchased a newly discovered painting by seventeenth-century Spanish master Diego Velázquez—the first work by the artist to enter its collection, and the first to enter the collection of any West Coast museum. Titled Portrait of Count-Duke of Olivares, the ca. 1626 work is a bust-length portrayal […]

Polly WatsonSep 24, 2026

Aperture Opens New Headquarters on New York’s Upper West Side

Aperture, the nonprofit photography publisher founded in 1952, opened its new home last week. The organization has taken the first two floors of a building on the Upper West Side at Columbus Avenue and West 78th Street, across from the American Museum of National History. The decision to move uptown from its previous location in […]

Theo BelciSep 24, 2026

Steven Shearer, Painter of Disaffected Youth, Wins 2026 Audain Prize

Canadian multidisciplinary artist Steven Shearer, known for his portraits blending youth subculture, contemporary iconography, and art-historical references, has been named the winner of this year’s C$100,000 ($71,000) Audain Prize for the Visual Arts. Established in 2004 with the aim of elevating Canadian art at home and abroad, the prize is considered one of Canada’s most […]

Polly WatsonSep 24, 2026

El Museo del Barrio Rented Space to Controversial 9/11 Conference

On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a nonprofit organization called the International Center for 9/11 Justice rented space from New York’s El Museo del Barrio for a four-day conference called “Turning the Tide: 9/11 25 Years Later.” The museum says it regrets renting space to the event’s organizers. According to the New […]

Samuel WilkenSep 24, 2026

Fondation Beyeler Unveils Three New Peter Zumthor–Designed Buildings

The Fondation Beyeler in Riehen, Switzerland, has revealed a trio of buildings designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, the Pritzker Prize–winning designer of the new David Geffen Galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The three structures, along with the addition of roughly 108,000 square feet of green space, including gardens, expand the […]

Polly WatsonSep 24, 2026

Joan Mitchell Foundation Releases Report on Artist Legacy Stewardship

Last week, the Joan Mitchell Foundation published the report “Creating Future Memory: Building the Field of Artist Legacy Stewardship.” The report is available on the foundation’s website as a free PDF download. The report’s authors, Solana Chehtman and Sharon Mizota, surveyed more than 150 artists, family members, archivists, curators, and legacy professionals to create the […]

Theo BelciSep 24, 2026

Buoyed by $105 Million Sale, Christie’s Inaugurates Pop Culture Division

Blue-chip auction house Christie’s on September 23 revealed the launch of a new division focused on sales of pop culture memorabilia, Artnews reports. The announcement comes on the heels of a sale of sports, music, and historical memorabilia from the collection of Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay that brought in a whopping $105.3 million—the largest […]

Polly WatsonSep 24, 2026

German Artists Arrested at Louvre for Installing Their Art Near the Mona Lisa

Two German artists were arrested at the Louvre in Paris on September 19 after mounting two canvases to a wall of the Salle des États, where Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is displayed. Police reported that the pair used sticky tape to affix the works, each of which measured roughly twelve by nine inches. One […]

Polly WatsonSep 23, 2026

Chiharu Shiota and Mami Kataoka Named to l’Ordre d’Arts et Lettres by French Republic

Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota and Mami Kataoka, the director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, have been appointed to l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) by the government of France. Shiota was awarded the rank of Officier, while Kataoka was given that of Chevalier. The pair were honored at […]

Polly WatsonSep 23, 2026

Art Institute of Chicago Returns Metzinger Painting to Family of Jewish Collector

The Art Institute of Chicago has announced that it will return Jean Metzinger’s painting Woman with a Fan (1913) to the family of Jewish art collector Emanuel Lewenstein. The museum acquired the painting from New York’s Sidney Janis Gallery in 1959, but provenance research by the Mondex Corporation—an organization founded in 1993 that works to […]

Theo BelciSep 23, 2026

Jeffreen M.H. Ash Steps Down from Leadership of Threewalls

Jeffreen M.H. Ash will depart from her role as executive director of the Chicago cultural nonprofit Threewalls on September 30. She has spent eleven years at the contemporary art organization, whose mission is to support Black artists through collaboration and community and within Black feminist and diasporic traditions. “It has been a privilege to create […]

Thomas PatierSep 23, 2026

U.K. Bans Export of “Exquisite” Renaissance Statuette

The U.K. government has placed a ban on the export of an early-sixteenth-century bronze, valued at $6.2 million, in an effort to give British museums and galleries time to acquire the work and keep it on public display. Seated Nymph was sculpted by the Italian artist Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, also known as Antico, in […]

Theo BelciSep 23, 2026

Architect Frida Escobedo to Design Malba Expansion

The Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (Malba) has announced that Mexican architect Frida Escobedo will lead the project to expand the museum. The subterranean expansion will be constructed beneath Plaza Perú, the public park that neighbors the museum, and will roughly double the museum’s current exhibition space. New features include temporary galleries, an […]

Theo BelciSep 23, 2026

Corporate Cartoon Capers

On the death and resurrection of Dave Green's 2026 film Coyote vs. Acme

Alexander JovanovichSep 23, 2026

Mérida to Host First Edition of Bienale de Yucatán

The Bienale de Yucatán, the first large-scale international contemporary art biennial in Mexico, is set to open in Mérida, the capital of the Yucatán state, this November. Artistic director Abraham Cruzvillegas has made language and all forms of communication the focus of this first edition. Titled “Vocal,” it will bring together seventy-six artists and other […]

Samuel WilkenSep 22, 2026

Tyler Mitchell Wins Crystal Bridges Museum’s $250,000 Don Tyson Prize

Artist, photographer, and filmmaker Tyler Mitchell has been named the recipient of the 2026 Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art. Established in 2016, the prize is awarded biennially by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Though it was inaugurated as an unrestricted $200,000 cash award, the honor this […]

Polly WatsonSep 22, 2026

Maria Arusoo to Lead Estonia’s Tallinn Art Hall

Maria Arusoo has been announced as the director of the Tallinn Art Hall, one of Estonia’s oldest and best-known contemporary art institutions, with a contract for the next five years. An influential figure on the Baltic art scene, she arrives to the hall from the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art, Tallinn, where she has served […]

Polly WatsonSep 22, 2026

Kanal Director Yves Goldstein to Depart Museum After Opening Weekend

Yves Goldstein will leave Brussels’s new Kanal-Centre Pompidou two days after its opening on November 28. He has spent a decade leading Kanal through the planning and renovation of its home in a massive Art Deco building, which formerly housed a Citroën garage, and navigating a partnership with the Centre Pompidou. Goldstein announced in May […]

Thomas PatierSep 22, 2026

“What Does It Mean to Be Animate?”: The Films of Diego Marcon

On Diego Marcon’s sick children, dangling puppets, and suspended bodies

Mika LeeSep 21, 2026

Catherine Liu’s Early Reviews

In the early ’90s, Catherine Liu contributed regular dispatches from the downtown New York gallery scene for Artforum

Theo BelciSep 21, 2026

Shock Downpour Sends Water Torrenting into the Uffizi, Threatening Masterworks

A fast-moving cloudburst swept through Florence on September 17, dropping nearly two inches of rain in the span of an hour and sending water cascading into the Uffizi Gallery and the historic Palazzo Pitti, sparking concern regarding the masterpieces within. At the Uffizi, rain seeped through a skylight of a gallery housing a clutch of […]

Polly WatsonSep 18, 2026