Art
Contemporary art, exhibitions, biennials and museums. Not what a work says — why it says it now.
San Francisco's SF Camerawork closes after 52 years
The nonprofit photography gallery, which showed early work by Robert Mapplethorpe and Sally Mann, closed on August 16, citing rising costs and declining funding.
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Telfair Museums names Caitlín Doherty as new executive director
Telfair Museums in Savannah has appointed Caitlín Doherty, who led MOCA Jacksonville for a decade, as its new executive director, starting in October.
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Guggenheim Abu Dhabi names inaugural director ahead of opening
The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi has appointed Dr. Valerie Hillings as the inaugural director of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, which is set to open in December.
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Four Antonello da Messina works stolen from museum in Sicily
Thieves stole four works by Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina from a museum in his hometown; officials suspect the theft may have been commissioned.
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US National Gallery of Art acquires around 190 works spanning five centuries
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, has announced approximately 190 new acquisitions since March, spanning multiple media, centuries and continents.
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The Armory Show launches its first museum acquisition prizes
For the first time in its more than three-decade history, the New York fair will award acquisition prizes letting the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Bronx Museum add a work to their collections.
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More than thirty steel lobsters arrive in Pompeii
Philip Colbert's sculptures opened on 27 July across the archaeological site and nearby villas, the first contemporary sculpture show there in thirty years.
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Manifesta 16 moves into twelve emptied churches
Spread across four Ruhr cities until 4 October, the biennial occupies deconsecrated and underused churches with 106 participants.
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A São Paulo theatre opens a permanent space for visual art
Luísa Matsushita's new paintings, drawn from her memory of nightlife in Baixo Augusta, inaugurate the Aberto Solo programme on 15 August.
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Vantage Point 13 stretches documentary photography in Sharjah
Sharjah Art Foundation's open-call photography exhibition runs from 8 August to 29 November 2026 with six commissioned participants.
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Christine Sun Kim covers a Seoul museum in sign language
At MMCA Seoul, the artist turns American Sign Language movements into floor-to-wall graphics and an animation on a curved screen of 72 panels.
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Onassis ONX rethinks how technology-based art gets commissioned
ONX Relay combines funding, curatorial guidance and technical support, aiming to place tech-based works in institutions from the outset.
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Ryan Presley wins Australia's main Indigenous art award
The Marri Ngarr artist took the $100,000 prize at the 43rd National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award with a Renaissance-style painting.
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A seven-ton glass desk sets a Frank Gehry record
Icehenge, made of sixteen rough-cut glass pieces and once installed in a Chicago lobby, sold for $243,200 against a $200,000 high estimate.
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Christie's posts $4.5bn for the first half of 2026
Auction sales reached $3.5bn with a 91 percent sell-through rate, a 71 percent rise year on year, while Old Masters jumped 232 percent.
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Nilbar Güreş represents Turkey in Venice until November
Curated by Başak Doğa Temür, the Turkish Pavilion at the Arsenale builds an exhibition around an everyday Turkish farewell phrase.
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Diyarbakır Prison is to become a memorial museum
Turkey's culture ministry will convert the former prison, associated with abuses after the 1980 coup, into a memorial museum and cultural centre.
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The Met returns six ancient works to Italy
A bronze relief, a marble fish plate, two marble dishes, a krater and a group of fibulae are going back, following a district attorney inquiry and the museum's own research.
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Museums are buying art together, and not only to save money
Joint acquisitions have moved from exception to routine, from a $3.2m Dobson portrait in London to a 300-work shared collection in Los Angeles.
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Palais de Tokyo needs a temporary home. So does a collective
Paris's contemporary art institution closes for 18 months from July 2027, and one candidate building already houses an artist-run collective.
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Guggenheim Abu Dhabi names its first director
Valerie Hillings will lead the museum that opens on 11 December, returning to a project she helped build between 2009 and 2018.
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