The Art Newspaper Weekly

Tate Modern this week opened a vast exhibition exploring the life and work of the maverick Australian-born performance artist, fashion designer and self-styled “club monster”, Leigh Bowery, as well as the variety of cultural figures in his orbit in London. It coincides with other related London shows: one analysing the fashion work of Bowery and his collaborators and peers at the Fashion and Textile Museum, and another at the National Portrait Gallery about the style and culture magazine The Face, which emerged around the same time as Bowery set foot in the UK capital in the early 1980s. Ben Luke reviews the shows with Louisa Buck, The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent. Three years on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and amid fraught international diplomacy following the US’s abrupt shift in approach to the war under President Trump, we speak to Sophia Kishkovsky, our international correspondent who has widely reported on Russia and Ukraine, about how Ukraine’s art world is responding to this n

Shows opening in Washington and Dublin this month explore quiltmaking by African American women. Ben Luke talks to Raina Lampkins-Fielder, chief curator for the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, and the organiser of the exhibition Kith & Kin: The Quilts of Gee’s Bend at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), about the history of quiltmaking in this small part of Alabama, and the growing recognition of its artistic importance. The Musée Picasso in Paris this week unveiled its exhibition “Degenerate” art: Modern art on trial under the Nazis, which looks back not just at the infamous 1937 exhibition in Munich but also the years-long campaign to attack modern art and artists in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. We speak to the exhibition’s co-curator, Johan Popelard. And this episode’s Work of the Week marks the death last week of Mel Bochner, a leading figure in the development of conceptual art. We speak to his gallerist, Peter Freeman, who knew and worked with Bochner for more than 50 years. We look in particular

Next month, the German artist Anselm Kiefer will be 80, and the first of a number of shows internationally to mark this landmark moment opened this week at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK. It focuses on his early works, and Ben Luke visits Oxford to discuss this pivotal moment in his career with Lena Fritsch, the curator of the exhibition. The latest edition of the biennial in the United Arab Emirate of Sharjah opened earlier this month. The Art Newspaper’s correspondent Dale Berning Sawa visited during opening week and spoke to Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, the president and director of Sharjah Art Foundation, which runs the biennial, about this year’s edition, her journey in art, and her role in establishing the biennial as a leading art world event. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Portrait of Mateu Fernández de Soto (1901) by Pablo Picasso, a painting from the artist’s Blue Period. Conservators at The Courtauld Institute in London have discovered an image of a mystery woman hidden beneath this portrait o

Last weekend, the US President Donald Trump signed executive orders placing 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, which were due to take effect on Tuesday. But at the last minute, the tariffs were postponed, at least for a month. Inevitably, though, the talk of a trade war set nerves jangling at Zona Maco, the art fair in Mexico City, which opened on Wednesday. Ben Luke speaks to Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, who is in the Mexican capital, about the prevailing mood, and about the effect on the art world more generally of some of Trump’s executive orders. It is also the India Art Fair in Delhi this week. Our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, is there and tells us more about the fair amid the wider social and political climate in India. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Henry Fitz Jr’s self-portrait, a daguerreotype, made in January or February 1840. It is thought to be the first photograph of a person made in the United States. It features in a major show at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterd

Peter Hujar, Gregg Bordowitz and Rotimi Fani-Kayode are three artists whose work reflects in different ways on the Aids crisis that has devastated communities across the world since the 1980s. Hujar, who died from Aids-related pneumonia in 1987, is the subject of a new show at Raven Row in London, the largest to date at a UK gallery. Host Ben Luke takes a tour of the show with its curators, the writer John Douglas Millar, and the artist, master printer and model for some of Hujar’s photographs, Gary Schneider. The artist Gregg Bordowitz was a member of The Aids Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, founded in New York in the 1980s. Bordowitz has lived with HIV since the late 1980s, and it has fuelled his art and activism ever since, as a new show at Camden Art Centre in London demonstrates. We spoke to him about his life and work. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s Abiku (Born to Die) (1988), a photograph in The 80s: Photographing Britain, a show at Tate Britain in London.

The Art Newspaper’s correspondent for the Middle East, Sarvy Geranpayeh, has been reporting on the effect of Israel’s military bombardment of Gaza on artists and art workers there since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict in 2023. In the wake of the three-stage ceasefire that began last Sunday, she has returned to those she has spoken to over the past 16 months to hear their views on the agreement and what happens next. The Musée du Louvre in Paris this week opened a show of the great 13th-century Italian painter Cimabue. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, spoke to Thomas Bohl, the exhibition’s curator. And this episode’s Work of the Week is actually three works produced in a family business of printmakers in 17th-century Netherlands. The works, by Hendrick Goltzius, and his grandsons Theodor and Adriaen Matham, are part of a new show, A Family Affair: Artistic Dynasties in Europe (Part I, 1500–1700), at the Blanton Museum of Art, part of The University of Texas, Austin. The curator of t

This week: the Los Angeles wildfires. The Art Newspaper’s West Coast contributing editor in LA, Jori Finkel, tells our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, about the devastation in Southern California, and its effect on artists and institutions. The World Monuments Fund (WMF), the independent organisation devoted to safeguarding global heritage has released its biennial World Monuments Watch, a list of 25 sites that are potentially threatened. The aim of the list is, according to the WMF to “mobilise action, build public awareness, and demonstrate how heritage can help communities confront the crucial issues of our time”. Ben Luke talks to John Darlington, the director of projects for WMF Britain, who also reflects on the future of the organisation’s project to train Syrian refugees in stonemasonry skills, in the wake of the change in government in Syria. And this episode’s Work of the Week is All About Painting in Colour: An Illustrated Book, a portfolio in two volumes made by the leading artist of

A 2025 preview: Georgina Adam, our editor-at-large, tells host Ben Luke what might lie ahead for the market. And Ben is joined by Jane Morris, editor-at-large, and Gareth Harris, chief contributing editor, to select the big museum openings, biennials and exhibitions.All shows discussed are in The Art Newspaper's The Year Ahead 2025, priced £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency. Buy it here.Exhibitions: Site Santa Fe International, Santa Fe, US, 28 Jun-13 Jan 2026; Liverpool Biennial, 7 Jun-14 Sep; Folkestone Triennial, 19 Jul-19 Oct; Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 5 Apr-2 Sep; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, 19 Oct-7 Feb 2026; Gabriele Münter, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 7 Nov-26 Apr 2026; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, 4 Apr-24 Aug; Elizabeth Catlett: a Black Revolutionary Artist, Brooklyn Museum, New York, until 19 Jan; National Gallery of Art (NGA), Washington DC, 9 Mar-6 Jul; Art Institute of Chicago, US, 30 Aug-4 Jan 2026; Ithell Colquhoun, Tate Britain, Londo

It is the final episode of 2024 and so, as always, we review the year, looking at the top stories, the big issues and the best art. Host Ben Luke is joined by The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent, Louisa Buck, our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, and Ben Sutton, our editor in the Americas. Under discussion, among much else: the growing faultlines between institutions and artists in relation to Gaza; the big museum stories, from Saudi Arabian funding to attacks on artworks and restitution; a market roundup; culture and the climate emergency; and the panel’s exhibitions and biennials of the year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, three artist interviews: Carsten Höller on his book of games, Takashi Murakami on his new work, and Valeria Luiselli and Leo Heiblum on their Dia sound installation. Höller is the author of a book featuring 336 games that can be played alone, in pairs or in groups, without any props. He tells Ben Luke about art and play and his perennial quest for unpredictability. Takashi Murakami has been in London this week for the opening of his exhibition, Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami, at Gagosian. We speak to him about the show and his fascination with the television series Shōgun. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Echoes from the Borderlands, a sound installation created by Valeria Luiselli, Ricardo Giraldo and Leo Heiblum, which was unveiled at Dia Chelsea in New York this week. Valeria and Leo join us to tell us more about the project.Book of Games by Carsten Höller, edited by Stefanie Hessler and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Taschen, 760 pp, £40 or $50 (hb)Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murak

The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, Ben Sutton, and our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, are in Florida and report on the sales and the mood on the first VIP day at Art Basel Miami Beach. On 8 December, the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris will reopen, more than five years after the fire that partly destroyed it. Ben Luke talks to one of the architects responsible for its rise from the ashes, Pascal Prunet. And this episode’s Work of the Week is The Madonna and Child with Saints (1526-27) by Parmigianino, better known as The Vision of Saint Jerome. The painting this week returned to public display for the first time in 10 years, in a new exhibition at the National Gallery in London, following conservation, and we talk to Maria Alambritis, the show’s co-curator.Art Basel Miami Beach, until Sunday, 8 December.Notre-Dame reopens on Sunday, 8 December.Parmigianino: The Vision of Saint Jerome, National Gallery, London, until 9 March 2025Gift subscription: why not give a friend, colleague or family member a subscr

Two exhibitions have just opened that look at art and tech: in London, Tate Modern’s Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet celebrates the pioneers of kinetic, programmed and digital art, and offers a kind of origin story of contemporary immersive installation. Ben Luke speaks to Val Ravaglia, the co-curator of the show, amid the blinking lights and bleeping sound. In California, meanwhile, Digital Witness at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) looks at how new software and hardware shaped the worlds of design, photography, and film between the 1980s and now. We speak to the exhibition’s curators, Britt Salvesen, the department head and curator of prints and drawings at Lacma, and Staci Steinberger, the curator of decorative arts and design at the museum. And this episode’s Work of the Week is the Harmonia Macrocosmica (1661) by Andreas Cellarius, a celestial atlas made in the Netherlands. Rebecca Feakes, the librarian at the Blickling Estate, a 17-century mansion in Norfolk, UK, run

Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), the work featuring a banana stuck to a wall with grey duct tape, sold at Sotheby’s in New York, on Wednesday for $5m or $6.2m with fees. But how did other works fare at this week’s auctions in New York? Ben Luke talks to Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, about the sales. Frank Auerbach, the painter who escaped the Holocaust and dedicated more than 70 years to creating portraits and cityscapes in London in raw, thick paint and expressive charcoal, has died. We speak to the curator of three of his most important exhibitions—and a model for Auerbach for more than 40 years—Catherine Lampert, about his work. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Mzwandile at home after coming from the rehab center (2018), a photograph from Nyaope, a series by the South African photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa. In the series he explored the devastating effect on his local community of a heroin-based drug, called nyaope. The work is part of the exhibition Heroi

UK museums are at a moment of transformation with a new generation of directors taking the helm at several of the major national institutions in London. So for this landmark 300th episode, we felt it was a good moment to look at the challenges and opportunities for museums now and in the future. We invited Gus Casely-Hayford of V&A East, Nicholas Cullinan of the British Museum and Karin Hindsbo of Tate Modern to join our host Ben Luke for a wide-ranging discussion.LAST CHANCE subscription offer: get three months for just £1/$1/€1. Choose between our print and digital or digital-only subscriptions. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more. Offer ends on 17 November. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: two exhibitions in London are showing remarkable works made during the Renaissance. At the King’s Gallery, the museum that is part of Buckingham Palace, Drawing the Italian Renaissance offers a thematic journey through 160 works on paper made across Italy between 1450 and 1600. Ben Luke talks to Martin Clayton, Head of Prints and Drawings at the Royal Collection Trust, about the show. At the Royal Academy, meanwhile, the timescale is much tighter: a single year, 1504 to be precise, when Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael were all in Florence. We talk to Julien Domercq, a curator at the Academy, about this remarkable crucible of creativity. And this episode’s Work of the Week is a magnum opus of Renaissance textiles: the Battle of Pavia Tapestries, made in Brussels to designs by Bernard van Orley, and currently on view in an exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Thomas Campbell, the director of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, talks to The Art Newspaper’s associate digital editor, A

Shortly after the US election on 5 November, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington opens The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, a radical new perspective on the history of the discipline from 1792 to now. Ahead of its opening, Ben Luke speaks to Karen Lemmey, a curator of sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and co-curator of the exhibition. In Warsaw, the Museum of Modern Art—a project 20 years in the making—has partially opened. We speak to its director, Joanna Mytkowska, about the long road to the unveiling and the upheavals in Polish politics along the way. And this episode’s Work of the Week is The Lamentation over the Dead Christ (early 1620s) by Jusepe de Ribera. It features in the first survey of the Spanish-born Baroque artist ever staged in France, at the Petit Palais in Paris. The museum’s director, Annick Lemoine, tells us more.The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., 8 November-14 Se

This week: with less than two weeks before the US goes to the polls, and with early voting underway, Ben Luke talks to The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, Ben Sutton, about what we might expect depending on whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins the presidential election on 5 November. The exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350 is currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and will open at the National Gallery in London next March. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, travelled to the Tuscan city to look at the work of some of the Sienese artists who light up the show, in the context of the city itself. He was guided by the co-curator of the exhibition, Caroline Campbell, the director of the National Gallery of Ireland. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Personal Accounts, an ongoing series of video installations exploring patriarchal violence by the South African artist Gabrielle Goliath. The latest cycle in the series, called Mango Blossoms, opens at the

After descending on London last week, the art world arrived in Paris this week, with the main attraction being the Art Basel Paris art fair—now staged in the renovated Belle Epoque masterpiece, the Grand Palais. An editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper, Jane Morris, was at the VIP opening and tells us more. As always, alongside the fair are a number of eye-catching museum shows and projects. Among them is Chapelle, a new in-situ work for the Musée Picasso by the Argentinian artist Guillermo Kuitca. Ben Luke talks to Kuitca about the piece. And this episode’s Work of the Week is June (2022) by Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, a work from a series in which the Polish-born Romani artist reimagines astrologically themed frescoes at the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara in order to explore the history and contemporary life of the Roma people. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, talks to Mirga-Tas about the work, as it goes on display at Tate St Ives in the UK.Art Basel Paris, Grand Palais, until Sunday, 20 October.C

The Frieze London art fair has a new look for 2024 as it looks to keep its freshness amid increased competition with the new kid on the art fair block, next week’s Art Basel Paris. So how effective is the re-design? Ben Luke talks to Kabir Jhala, the art market editor at The Art Newspaper, about this year’s fair and about the auctions which have also taken place in London this week. The duo The White Pube who, since 2015, have shaken-up the world of art criticism in the UK, have just published a new book, called Poor Artists. We speak to the duo, Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad, about it. And this episode’s Work of the Week is a vital contribution to the history of the Italian Arte Povera group. Giuseppe Penone’s Alpi Marittime (1968) has just gone on display in a new survey of Arte Povera at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris. The exhibition is curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and we talk to her about Penone’s work.Frieze London and Frieze Masters, until 13 October, Regent’s Park, London.Poor Ar

This week: a huge survey of the work of the late linchpin of the Los Angeles contemporary scene Mike Kelley has arrived at Tate Modern in London. We speak to its co-curator Catherine Wood about this enormously influential artist and his visceral and absurd response to popular culture and folk traditions of the US. A major show of Indian art made between 1975 and 1998, a pivotal period of political, social and economic change in the country, opened this week at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. Shanay Jhaveri, a former curator of international art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York who is now head of visual arts at the Barbican, leads us in a tour of show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Raoul Dufy’s Thirty Years or La Vie en Rose (1931), a painting made originally for the 30th anniversary of a gallery in Paris, that was owned by the pioneering woman gallerist Berthe Weill. She is the subject of an exhibition at the Grey Art Museum at New York University, which will tour next year to Montre