Category: art
Creativity, design, culture, inspiration
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San Francisco's Tech Billionaires Don't Care About Your Art School
This week San Francisco’s California College of the Arts (CCA) announced plans to close by the end of the 2026-2027 school year. CCA’s campus will then be owned by Vanderbilt University. Citing CCA’s long-standing financial struggles, including “demographic shifts and a persistent structural deficit,” CCA President David C. Howse called the plan “a decisive act read more
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Sale of Chinese Vase Canceled by French Court Over Question of Provenance
A French court ordered the high-profile Galerie Kraemerin Paris to return €2.8 million (around $3.25 million) to collector Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani over questions about a Chinese vase. The decision follows eight years of legal wrangling over the date attributed to the piece. As reported by the Art Newspaper, the Paris court of read more
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Something In The Air: The Paintings of Casey Weldon – Hi-Fructose Magazine
Casey Weldon’s work is like the house of mirrors at a carnival. Instead of stretching and distorting the human patrons that stumble into the labyrinthine funhouse, though, Weldon’s work entraps American culture itself, reflecting images that amplify, twist, and invert the dynamics we otherwise inherently accept in our society and its rituals. His paintings feature read more
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Alaska Art Student Arrested for Eating Another Student’s AI-Generated Art in Protest
Artists and other creative people (not to mention, ahem, journalists) have been deeply concerned about the way that their work has been hoovered up by tech companies to fuel artificial intelligence–powered image and text generators. In 2023, several digital artists filed a class action lawsuit targeted at Stability AI, Midjourney, and the image-sharing platform DeviantArt, read more
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UK Reveals Nearly $80 M. Worth of Art Donated by Collectors in Order to Reduce Tax Burdens
Arts Council England has announced the results of the 2024-25 edition of its Cultural Gifts Scheme (CGS) and Acceptance in Lieu (AIL)initiatives. Thirty-two artworks entered public collections this cycle, with a combined value of almost $80 million. Highlights include Edgar Degas’s pastel Danseuses roses (ca. 1897–1901), given to the National Gallery by the estate of read more
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Ali Cherri on How Art Can Keep Us Empathetic In a Dark and Violent World
In Ali Cherri’s recent films, war maps itself onto the spine of those afflicted. The watchman, the titular figure of a 2024 short, stands rigid for unbroken hours, lost in a lineage of men stationed along the border of the internationally unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.Cherri’s follow-up film The Sentinel (2025)—the second in an read more
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What Will Retirement Bring? An Animated Film for Those Dreaming of Work-Free Days
When I retire, I plan to read every morning and bake bread from scratch. I’d like to resume Spanish classes and finally become fluent. And I plan to see movies mid-afternoon, take long, leisurely walks leading nowhere in particular, and travel as much as possible. Does this sound familiar? Dreaming of retirement is one coping read more
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Joan Mitchell Foundation Names 31 Artists for Residency in New Orleans
The New York–based Joan Mitchell Foundation has named the 31 artists who will participate in its 2026 residency program. Taking place at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, the residents will participate in either six-week or 14-week residencies during three seasons (spring, summer, fall) this year, with no more than nine residents being on read more
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What to See During San Francisco Art Week
My favorite quote about our city by the Bay is from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1957 film Vertigo. As the protagonist, Scottie, looks out at mid-20th-century San Francisco from an office window, his acquaintance, Gavin Elster, observes, “My how San Francisco’s changed. The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast. I should have liked read more
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Met Workers Vote to Join Local 2110 UAW, Creating One of the Nation’s Largest Museum Unions
Nearly 1,000 salaried and hourly workers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art voted on Friday to join Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers (UAW), creating one of the nation’s largest museum unions. The new union, approved by a vote of 542-172, comprises staff from across 50 departments at the Met, including curators, conservators, librarians, read more
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Qatar Museums, Not a Foreign Nation, Reportedly Tried to Acquire South African Pavilion Work
Yet more details have emerged surrounding the abrupt cancelation of Gabrielle Goliath‘s planned Venice Biennale pavilion for South Africa, with the Daily Maverick publishing a report about the allegations that a foreign nation tried to interfere in her exhibition. Gayton McKenzie, the South African culture minister, controversially said in a statement that he canceled Goliath’s read more
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Met Museum Workers Are Officially Unionized
News The new union will represent staff across 50 departments of the Manhattan institution. Members of the new Metropolitan Museum of Art Union pose outside the institution. (photo by Tiffany Camusci, courtesy Local 2110 UAW) Staff at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City are officially unionized following a successful National Labor Relations read more
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Leafy Greens and Loaves of Bread Transform into Playful Ceramics by Eléonore Joulin
From cheese wedges and leafy greens to loaves of bread and freshly picked zucchini, Eléonore Joulin has a tendency for playing with her food. In the Brussels-based artist’s work, a loaf of challah transforms into a vase, while a melting round of Raclette—a cheese originating in Switzerland that’s scraped right off the wheel onto baguettes read more
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A Very 2026 Art Reading List
Daily Newsletter Also, the Smithsonian complies with Trump, the Asian Art Museum’s baby rave, and an interview El Salvador’s Venice Biennale artist. Do you have a go-to shade of lipstick? Do you wear it at all? Why, or why not? Inquiring minds — specifically, art critic Eileen G’Sell — want to know. Her forthcoming study read more
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15 Art Books We're Excited to Read in 2026
It’s a new year and that means a new crop of art books awaits us. Whether you prefer criticism, catalogs, or conversations — or the rare art-themed novel that promises to deliver — we’ve got you covered. We’re excited to alternate between a book on the activist art of complaining by Sarah Ahmed and a read more
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Art Movements: Pineapples, Coconuts, and More Art Awards
Community Organizations including United States Artists and Creative Capital announced millions of dollars in grants this week. Plus: a baby rave! Matthieu Laurette applies banana puree while reading excerpts from the French Constitution, per instructions from artist Karlo Ibarra, as part of his performance “TROPICALIZE ME!” at the 3rd Gran Bienal Tropical. (photo by Raquel read more
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Required Reading
Community The Schomburg Qur’an, Auudi Dorsey’s paintings of Black community at the beach, an unsolved Pollock theft, remembering Claudette Colvin, dollhouse furniture, and more. On January 6, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor of New York City with his hand resting on a special edition of the Qur’an, now on view at the New read more
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Meet the Artist in El Salvador’s First-Ever Venice Biennale Pavilion
This spring, El Salvador will present a pavilion at the Venice Biennale for the first time in its history, during the contemporary art festival’s 61st iteration from May 9 to November 22. Painter and sculptor J. Oscar Molina, born in El Salvador in 1971 and currently residing in Southampton, New York, will represent the country read more
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In 'Funeral for a Tree,' Steve Parker Etches Bird Song into Playable Oak Records
When a 65-year-old tree succumbed to a fungus known as oak wilt, Steve Parker wanted to pay tribute. The wooded habitat had previously loomed above Parker’s front yard and provided refuge to migratory birds. Rather than turn its limbs and trunk into mulch, though, Parker did as he often does with a material that’s no read more
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Smithsonian Complies With Trump’s Documents Request
News The institution handed over wall texts and other materials as part of the White House’s targeted inquiry into the museum system. Demonstrators protesting against Trump’s executive actions aimed at the Smithsonian institution on May 3, 2025, in Washington, DC (photo by Craig Hudson/Washington Post via Getty Images) Months after the Trump administration promised to read more
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