Inspiration

Do you like to gamble? Our editor certainly does. Why else would he send us to Las Vegas for 48 hours with orders to file a 2,000-word report on hotel and casino art? He’s betting this piece will clinch our first Pulitzer in the vaunted field of travel journalism—and odds are he might be right. As the authors of a long-running “Hard Truths” advice column and the “Hard Choices” series of interactive quizzes, our assignment came as a surprise. But in this age of continually defunded high culture we wondered: what does art look like when you leave Tribeca? Some writers go on Hajj to Marfa to feel the minimalist wind blow sand into their eyes, while others schlep Brooklinen tote bags as they chase biennials across small European cities. Being earnest art-world advice columnists, we prefer to explore more democratic forms of visual culture—the kind that ribaldly stages a two-hour revue called The Empire Strips Back: A Burlesque Parody. (Tragically, that show was sold out when we were in town. Not even press passes could get us in. So much for democracy.) In terms of aesthetics and curatorial vision, nearly every stop on our compressed three-day trip was its [...]

Wednesday’s announcement completes a return that began in May with a solo presentation held by Gagosian at the Frieze New York fair. At Frieze, Koons presented three sculptures from his “Hulk Elvis” series. All three of the works came from the artist’s personal collection. The switch appears to have been short-lived. Artnet News‘s Kenny Schachter reported last year that Koons split with Pace after a new series of Meissen-inspired sculptures proved too costly for the gallery to support. Schachter reported that Pace enlisted investors for the venture, sinking between $50 million and $100 million into the venture. But when additional funds were needed to finish fabrication, the investors balked. Koons walked away from Pace soon after, Shachter said. Koons’s critical star has faded in recent years, and his market stardom has also waned. Though his sculpture Rabbit (1986) remains the most expensive work sold at auction by a living artist, fetching $91.1 million in 2019, his sales fell greatly within the past few years. But Artnet News reported in 2024 that certain powerful collectors and dealers were working to help change that. Gagosian has staged 13 solo exhibitions by the artist in t

The program awards one-time grants of up to $20,000 in support of environmental art projects led by women-identifying artists from the United States and its territories. Additionally, selected projects will have a public engagement component completed by August 2026. A preliminary panel of judges selected the first round of applicants, followed by a second panel who chose the winners. The applications in the second panel were reviewed by Rehema C. Barber, director of curatorial affairs at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts; Clarinda Mac Low, executive director of Culture Push, Inc. & co-director of Works on Water; Diné artist Dakota Mace; Mari Robles, CEO at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; and Mary Ellen Strom, professor of the practice, media arts at SMFA-Tufts University, Boston. The intended impact of the project factors into the selection process. “We are living in a time of multiple crises—but we must not be overwhelmed or paralyzed from taking action. Environmental action is more urgently needed than ever before, and artists have a powerful role to play in helping us see, feel, and respond to the crises around us,” Susan Unterberg, AWAW founder, said in a statement. “The 2025 A

BOLD FUTURE. As the number of big dealers throwing in the towel rises and naysayers warn that the art market apocalypse is upon us, others are looking to a brighter future by reinventing the gallery model. Bolding Gallery, co-directed by Esme Blair and Sam Lincoln, has carved out a distinctive niche within London’s art scene over the past nine months—not by claiming a grand position, but by embedding itself into the overlooked architectural crevices of central London’s typically inaccessible spaces. Its foundation isn’t built on commercial ambition or industry capital, but begins, simply and resolutely, with the art and the artist, Plaster Magazine reports. Since its launch in December last year, the gallery has staged nine exhibitions across two venues, showcasing the work of 15 artists and quickly establishing itself as a vital platform for experimental performance and research-driven practices. Its unconventional structure deliberately avoids aesthetic categorization, placing the priorities of emerging artists front and center. At Bolding, the act of building an exhibition is considered integral to artistic practice itself. “The great advantage of London as a city is the scrappi

By Harrison Jacobs A six-year $15.5 million international research project has discovered a Stone Age settlement deep beneath the Bay of Aarhus near northern Demark, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The project, funded by the European Union, has been mapping the seabed across the Baltic and North Seas, as countries continue to build offshore wind farms in the area. Led by researchers at Aarhus’s Moesgaard Museum, the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, and the Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research in Germany, the project has sought to discover ancient settlements swallowed by sea rise caused by the last ice age 8,500 years ago. So far, divers have used a kind of underwater vacuum cleaner to recover animal bones, stone and wooden tools, arrowheads, and seal tooth 26 feet felow the surface. Peter Moe Astrup of Moesgaard, who has led the excavations, told the AP that they hope to find fishing equipment next. “It’s like a time capsule,” Astrup said. “When sea level rose, everything was preserved in an oxygen-free environment … time just stops.” To date the settlements—and to understand the sea rise—researchers have relied on studying the rings of submer

The Van Gogh Museum, the beloved Amsterdam home to many masterpieces by one of the 19th century’s most famous painters, said it could be forced to close if the Dutch government doesn’t appropriate more money to a much-needed renovation. The museum threatened closure on Wednesday via press release, an unusual measure that the institution said was necessary because the government is “not keeping the promise” it inked with the Vincent van Gogh Foundation in 1962. The foundation owns most of the artworks on view at the museum, including iconic paintings such as The Potato Eaters (1885). Signed after the artist’s descendants agreed to hand over hundreds of works to the newly created foundation, the 1962 agreement states that the Dutch state must continue to fund the construction and upkeep of the Van Gogh Museum. But the museum alleges that the country’s government has not committed enough funding the institution, which has filed a legal complaint about the matter, according to the New York Times. The Times report stated that the museum currently receives around $10 million from the government annually—and it now needs around $2.9 million more per year to support costs related to climat

“Our expansion of the gallery space marks a return to our roots as a salon style space, the anti-white box, where visitors can take their time for art to spark dialogue and community,” owner Claire Oliver said in a statement. “When we founded the gallery 33 years ago, this was always our goal, to be a welcoming place for collectors, artists and art enthusiasts of all sorts; we’re thrilled to open the upper floors as a space for convening.” The move comes at a time when galleries such as Blum, Venus Over Manhattan, and Clearing all recently shuttered and the art market continues to contract, with some eschewing the traditional gallery and fair models for more fluid options. Where others might see limitations in a traditional space, Oliver has long seen opportunity: “When we purchased the townhouse in 2016, we envisioned a wide ranging exhibition and creative space across all floors, never a white cube. Our gallery’s program has always focused on works by artists pushing the boundaries of the historical canon,” Oliver told ARTnews. Now, it seems, the space is following suit. Claire Oliver Gallery will inaugurate the new space with a solo exhibition by BK Adams on the ground [...]

A campaign group called Freedom in the Arts (Fita) has sent a letter to the University of Leicester in the UK threatening to sue it over for publishing “misleading” guidance on furthering transgender inclusion in museums and galleries.Fita has also demanded that the university removes the guidelines, titled “Trans-Inclusive Culture,” from its website immediately.The guidelines were published by the university’s Research Center for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) two years ago and lay out a framework for cultural institutions to “generate inclusive public spaces and workplaces.” It addresses legal and ethical questions about trans inclusion, which, it says, must be prioritized like “all other forms of prejudice and discrimination.”Twenty-two cultural and heritage groups support the guidelines, including the International Council of Museums UK (ICOM UK) and the Association of Independent Museums (Aim).Choreographer Rosie Kay and Denise Fahmy, a former staffer at Arts Council England, together, founded Fita, which accused the university’s guidelines of misrepresenting the meaning of “sex” under the Equality Act 2010. Fita claims this defies the UK Supreme Court’s decision earlier this ye

Egypt’s tourism and antiquities minister, Sherif Fathi, told Agence France-Presse: “There’s a lot underwater, but what we’re able to bring up is limited, it’s only specific material according to strict criteria. The rest will remain part of our sunken heritage.”Related Articles$15.5 M. Research Project Uncovers Stone Age Settlement on Seabed Near DenmarkA Well-Preserved Nearly 2,000-Year-Old Roman Mausoleum Unearthed in France