Inspiration

Palazzo Ducale in Genoa presents, in the rooms of the Appartamento del Doge, the great monographic exhibition “Dipingere l’invisibile” (Painting the Invisible) which pays homage to the work of a leading figure in contemporary art, the painter Giorgio Griffa (Turin, 1936). Curated by Ilaria Bonacossa and Sébastien Delot, the exhibition is organised in collaboration with

At first glance, the ICA Miami’s sunny, second-floor galleries offer some jarringly eclectic views: Unpainted found wood is paired with monochromatic prints, and oversized triptychs butt up against unvarnished planks with industrial hinges. These are all the work of one artist, Mildred Thompson (1936–2003), whose recent exhibitions have worked around her wide stylistic variance by focusing on a single period in her life, as in the memorable 2018 wood-focused show “Against the Grain” at the New Orleans Museum of Art. This first comprehensive retrospective boldly links disparate styles and techniques across five decades. Thompson’s identities were as complex as her oeuvre, and this exhibition, titled “Frequencies,” acknowledges her artistic evolution as she pursued education and audiences while moving back and forth between the United States and Germany. The eclecticism that risks being jarring turns out to be the show’s strength: It extends Thompson the courtesy to be complex, a courtesy not often afforded artists from marginalized groups. Indeed, though exhibition didactics address Thompson’s life as a queer Black woman, it is her artwork that drives the narrative, not her identiti

Rosa Barba has a way of taking our world’s most magical and most fundamental elements, then folding them in on one another—taking them apart, making them anew. Since the 1990s, she has been remaking film into sculpture and astronomy into film, fascinated by how each of these things scramble time and space. For her latest exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, she upped the ante, turning a black box gallery into a cello. Long wires stretch from floor to ceiling as film projectors pull strips of celluloid across them. Scotch tape that holds together these splices plucks the wires while passing over them, making low sounds, a celluloid symphony. The exhibition, “The Ocean of One’s Pause,” is an unusual survey of 15 years of Barba’s work: over a dozen cinematic sculptures are displayed in one a room, arranged so that they almost become one installation. Central to the show is Barba’s latest 25-minute film, Charge (2025), co-commissioned by MoMA and the Vega Foundation. The film was shotat CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva, and will be screened at Moynihan Train Hall and in Times Square, where the work is being shown as part [...]

Collins quickly realized that her ambitions had outstripped what was actually possible, leading her to split her planned mega-tapestry in two. After an initial trial that didn’t look quite as she wanted, she switched to a lighter yarn. She was pleased with the final product, which she brought home to New York in duffel bags, not yet aware that curator Adriano Pedrosa was interested in showing them at his Biennale. Since the 1990s, Collins has been creating fiber art that attempts to reach that promised land. She has crafted wearable garments, painting-like weavings, and performance pieces involving collaborators, many of whom have knit large textiles as a collective. She weaves queer themes into her work—rainbows and Pride flags recur throughout—and often creates textiles that have a corporeal quality, with spills of yarn that recall locks of hair or rivulets of blood. These labor-intensive pieces have been featured at commercial galleries, art fairs, and design expos and will now be surveyed by the museum of the Rhode Island School of Design, where Collins did both undergraduate and graduate work and later was a faculty member in the textiles department. The RISD survey, opening o

ArtNews kindly asked me to write about ten artists of the trans experience • but because there are so many I keep mental notes on • here instead are 25 • lists can sometimes feel so detached and I’m very attached to this subject • so for each I thought it might nice to highlight a personal memory about or experience with the artist or their work • all of them are truly artists in the fullest meaning of the word • I was first introduced to Jamie’s work through Love, Jamie, a documentary covering a specific moment in her life. She is a trans woman and artist who has been incarcerated for nearly three decades in men’s prisons. Her work really reaches into the essence of being a trans woman Fashion is a super-radical and inspiring visual artist, model, and deejay. I’ve been in love with her work and expression since I was a baby trans (just starting to transition). She really helped me understand that the rawness of one’s emotions hold power. I think the best way to understand her work is through her Instagram, @tightcorsetloosemorals. SK, an artist I’ve been following since I moved to NYC, draws [...]

The Persistence of Memory (La persistencia de la memoria) (1931) is a trifecta of superlatives: Surrealism’s most famous painting, created by its most famous artist, featuring its most famous motif. The painter, of course, is Salvador Dalí, and his iconic rendering of melted pocket watches is instantly recognizable to nearly everyone, even those with little or no interest in art. Dalí painted The Persistence of Memory when he was 28. By that time, he was already a well-established member of the Surrealist circle, having moved to their base of operation in Paris five years earlier. His reputation preceded his arrival thanks to his fellow Catalan artist Joan Miró, a Surrealist OG whose work inspired Dalí’s own. Miró introduced Dalí to André Breton, Surrealism’s founder and ideological enforcer, who welcomed Dalí into the movement—though in time, the latter’s penchant for flamboyance and self-promotion, as well as his sympathy for fascism, would lead to a very public rupture with Breton. Dalí added his own peculiar twists to Surrealist ideology as well. For example, when artists of varying stripe began to flock to Breton’s movement, he enlisted Dalí’s aid in coming up with a way of ma

The chief executive of English Heritage, the British conservation charity, has stepped down from his role having only joined at the beginning of 2024.English Heritage said in a statement that Nick Merriman resigned for personal reasons linked to family health. Geoff Parkin will now step into the role on an interim basis.Merriman’s reign was not without tension; he oversaw a restructuring of the charity and proposed cutting its workforce of 2,535 employees by 7 percent (189 jobs). The charity said it would aim to avoid redundancies while maintaining a team of more than 75 curators, historians, and conservators. He also planned to slash opening hours across its 400 sites by 10 percent as part of the overhaul. It was agreed that 21 sites would close over winter, including castles and abbeys. The organization had reportedly begun to consult with staff and its unions on the proposals as part of a formal consultation period which was not concluded before Merriman’s departure.The Guardian reported that some staff were “angered by cost cutting under [Merriman’s] watch.” Gerard Lemos,  the chair of English Heritage’s trustees, said in an official statement to staff: “I am sorry to say that

The art market isn’t broken, exactly, but in the eyes of art market veterans Ed Dolman, Alex Dolman, Brett Gorvy, Philip Hoffman, and Patti Wong, it doesn’t function the way it used to. The group aims to change that with a new collaborative consultancy, New Perspectives Art Partners (NPAP), announced Thursday. The consultancy won’t operate like a normal firm: each partner is keeping their day job, and they’ll only assemble when there’s a high-level, specialized problem that needs solving. Think of it like the Avengers, but for the art world. Gorvy and Dolman both acknowledged that the current art market is at an inflection point. “We’re not starting this in a boom,” Gorvy said. “We’re starting this in a market that’s becoming complex.” NPAP, the partners say, draws strength not just from its flexible structure but from the chemistry behind it. Dolman and Hoffman have known each other since the early 1990s. Gorvy worked closely with Dolman in the early 2000s. And although Patti Wong was a longtime competitor—she led Sotheby’s Asia while Gorvy served as Christie’s chairman and international head of postwar and contemporary art—Gorvy always admired her from afar.

The mystery provocateurs behind last week’s eight-foot-tall golden monument of President Donald Trump crushing Lady Liberty have returned to Washington, D.C.’s National Mall with another contribution to the genre of unauthorized presidential fan art—this time, video. Above the TV sat a spray-painted gold eagle, wings spread in what might generously be described as majesty. Gold ivy trailed down the sides like a rejected Versace ad. At the base, a plaque read: In the United States of America you have the freedom to display your so-called ‘art,’ no matter how ugly it is. — The Trump White House, June 2025 According to its National Park Service permit, the purpose of the video work is to “demonstrate freedom of speech and artistic expression using political imagery.” Translation: trolling with a permit. The piece is allowed to remain on the Mall through Sunday at 8 p.m., barring executive orders to the contrary. “Wow, these liberal activists masquerading as ‘artists,’ are dumber than I thought!” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson, in a statement presumably meant to be read aloud in all caps. “I’ve tricked them into taking down their ugly sculpture and replacing it with a be

Warren Williams, the president of CUPE 15—the local branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees which represents workers from a number of organizations and institutions in Vancouver, including the museum—said he was “deeply saddened by the employer’s recent decision” in a memo to VAG staff published on June 23. Williams also wrote: “Although the union has not yet completed its comprehensive evaluation, we have made the difficult decision to permit the employer to present voluntary severance package offers to individual employees.”

The photograph, which appears in the vinyl edition of that LP, shows Lorde donning a pair of see-through pants, without any underwear beneath them. Composed so that there is little to see beyond her waist, the picture echoes the album’s cover, an X-ray of the singer’s pelvis by artist Heji Shin. Many of Chetrit’s photographs feature herself and others in various states of undress, often as a comment on how erotic desire and power play a role in how we see. “Power dynamics, agency, sexuality, and the psychology behind imagery have always been an important part of my work,” she told Flash Art in 2018. She has worked on commission for fashion magazines and shown her art in galleries. Similar pants to the ones worn by Lorde here have also appeared in at least two other pictures by Chetrit, both of them self-portraits. In both, the artist artist poses before a mirror, spreading her legs and holding her camera to her face. Throughout the run-up to the album, Lorde has subverted gender conventions. In the video for “Man of the Year,” she tapes her breasts and writhes around on a pile of soil that references Walter De Maria’s New York [...]