Author: Brenna Caldwell
By its own ambitions, the Gaza Biennial is not just a group exhibition, but a tremendous cry for humanity. The intact heart will hear it and appreciate the gallery attendant’s gentle warning that tissue boxes are available for use. The full version of this roving biennial was on view at the Brooklyn nonprofit art space Recess through this past Sunday, though it remains on view in an abbreviated version from September 18 until December 20. It features the work of 25 artists from Gaza, most of whom remain in the besieged strip. Their perspectives on nearly two years of carnage have been…
Dataland, the world’s first AI art museum, will open in 2025 at Frank Gehry’s The Grand LA in downtown Los Angeles. The museum, led by Refik Anadol Studio, will showcase immersive AI-driven art. In 2025, Los Angeles will become home to the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) art museum, Dataland, helmed by Refik Anadol Studio. Nestled in the Frank Gehry-designed Grand LA complex, Dataland will position itself among Los Angeles’ prestigious art institutions like MOCA and The Broad. The museum, conceived by AI trailblazer Refik Anadol and his studio co-founder Efsun Erkiliç, will focus on blending art, science, and technology. Dataland…
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will open a landmark exhibition dedicated to Renaissance master Raphael next year. It marks the museum’s latest blockbuster for Italian Renaissance art, following last fall’s landmark “Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350,” which looked at the dawn of the Renaissance, nearly two centuries before Raphael. Titled “Raphael: Sublime Poetry” and running March 29–June 28, 2026, the exhibition will be the first of its kind ever mounted for Raphael in the United States. (The exhibition will not travel to other venues after its run at the Met.) The retrospective is to be curated by Carmen Bambach, a curator in the…
Lionel Ziprin’s unlikely rediscovery really got going with a walk in safe in Carol Bove’s Brooklyn studio. It was a big safe, and an old one Bove initially had to use a car jack to pry open its metal door and it became the unlikely home for all things related to Ziprin, a doyen of the Lower East Side art scene of the 1950s and ’60s who was all but forgotten in the intervening decades. After Bove came into possession of Ziprin’s poetry and drawings via his daughter Zia in the early 2010s, she began to exhibit them alongside her own sculptures.…
Art is often at its most compelling when it crosses boundaries between different disciplines, techniques, and traditions. Some artists choose to focus on a single medium, while others embrace a broader creative practice that allows them to explore multiple forms of expression. Tanto belongs to the latter group, combining contemporary painting with handcrafted art to create a body of work that is both visually engaging and culturally rich. Through expressive acrylic paintings and carefully crafted artisanal pieces, he demonstrates that fine art and traditional craftsmanship can exist in harmony, enriching one another while reflecting the diversity of everyday life. At…
French museums face criticism for alleged sinicization of Tibetan culture, raising concerns about cultural integrity during France, China diplomatic collaborations in 2024. A group of French researchers and Tibetologists has accused France’s cultural institutions, particularly the Musée du quai Branly and Musée Guimet, of aiding in the “sinicization” of non-Han cultures through the reclassification of Tibetan art. In an open letter published in Le Monde, the scholars argued that the museums’ labeling choices align with China’s historical narrative and its attempts to erase non-Han identities. This criticism follows a year of cultural collaboration between France and China, sparking a heated debate…
The closing image of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Raphael blockbuster, opening to the public on Sunday, is of a muscular man bursting out of a craggy hillside. As he does so, one jacked forearm blows right through the frame that surrounds him. Part of a monumentally scaled tapestry called Saint Paul in Prison (ca. 1517–21), it’s a ferocious picture of unbridled masculinity, bulging pecs and all. It might be read as the logical parting shot for a retrospective about a man whose paintings changed art history forever. But there is a wrinkle in that reading: the textile is not attributed to the Renaissance painter…
The National Gallery unveils a mysterious 1500s altarpiece, a $20M masterpiece by an unknown artist. Featuring a dragon & intriguing details, it’s a puzzle for art historians. The National Gallery is celebrating its bicentennial with a spectacular acquisition: a captivating altarpiece featuring the Virgin and Child, two saints, and a host of intriguing details. Purchased for over $20 million (£16 million at the time of purchase) from a private sale through Sotheby’s, funded by the American Friends of the National Gallery London, this previously unseen masterpiece presents a significant challenge and delight to art historians. The altarpiece, titled *The Virgin…