The Ruth Foundation for the Arts has revealed the five winners of its Ruth Award: Yuji Agematsu, Ranu Mukherjee, Will Rawls, Ellen Sebastian Chang, and Anna Martine Whitehead. The prize was inaugurated in 2024 and is given in recognition of North American artists who “are accelerating the field forward, building deeper relationships and connections across […]

The Trump administration, which this past August announced that it would review current and forthcoming Smithsonian exhibitions “to assess tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals,” has reiterated its threat to pull funding if the Smithsonian does not comply. Although the Smithsonian provided the White House with documentation in September, Domestic Policy Council director […]

Arnulf Rainer, whose work provided crucial inspiration to the Viennese Actionists, died on December 18 at the age of ninety-six. His death was confirmed by gallery Thaddaeus Ropac, which represents him. Though best known for his psychologically intense “Übermahlungen,” or overpaintings, Rainer’s experiments touched on Surrealism, minimalism, and Abstract Expressionism, among other genres; throughout, he […]

Surveying the final round of 2025 shows in New York

The US Senate on December 19 confirmed Mary Anne Carter as chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. Carter occupied the role during the first Trump presidency. During her first term, she expanded Creative Forces (a creative arts therapy program for US service members and veterans recovering from psychological health conditions) and elevated initiatives […]

The Las Vegas Museum of Art on December 17 released updated renderings of its future home, designed by the office of Pritzker Prize–winning Burkinabé architect Diébédo Francis Kéré. New York–based architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is serving as the architect of record on the project. Influenced by southwestern Nevada’s Mojave Desert, the African savanna’s […]

Staffers at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on December 15 and 16 voted to unionize under the auspices of AFSCME Cultural Workers United District Council 36, with 96 percent casting their electronic ballots in favor of doing so. The election was facilitated by the American Arbitration Association and approved by the National Labor […]

Italian Conceptual artist and theorist Franco Vaccari, whose participatory photographic works presaged the logics of social media and helped photography gain recognition as an art form, died on December 12. He was eighty-nine. His death was announced by the Bologna gallery P420, which represents him. Veronica Santi, writing in a 2020 issue of Artforum, characterized […]

On December 15, artists, musicians, cultural workers, and local politicians gathered in New York’s Federal Hall, where the Bill of Rights was introduced, to defend artistic rights in the US. Under the rallying cry “The First Amendment was born here; we will not let it die here,” some fifty participants called for December 15 to […]

M+ contemporary art museum in Hong Kong has named Heidi Lau and Wong Ping as the recipients of the 2025 Sigg Prize. Their win marks the first time that two artists have shared the biennial prize since its 2018 inception. The Oakland, California–born Lau, who lives and works between New York and Macau, won on the strength […]

The Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA) on December 15 announced that its founder, real estate developer Eduardo F. Costantini, has purchased the Daros Latinamerica Collection. Formerly residing in Zurich, the trove comprises 1,233 works, most created between the 1950s and the 2010s and encompassing painting, sculpture, photography, video, and large-scale installation. The […]

The Barbican Centre in London will close for a year beginning in June 2028 as part of a five-year, £240 million ($320 million) renovation that will see major improvements to the arts hub’s foyers, terrace, and conservatory. The announcement comes after the City of London Corporation has approved a £191 million investment in the center’s […]

Pakistani-born British Conceptual artist Ceal Floyer, known for her discreetly comedic conceptual performances and films and for her works composed of slightly altered mundane objects, died on December 11. Her death after a “long battle with illness” was announced by her galleries, Lisson and Esther Schipper. One of the upstart Young British Artists to alongside […]

The Louvre closed its doors to visitors on Monday, December 15, as staffers struck in protest of what they have characterized as intolerable working conditions at the Paris institution. The New York Times reports that about four hundred of the institution’s 2,100 employees failed to appear for work, instead blocking the museum’s iconic glass pyramid […]

A walk through of a haunted house that brings the scary parts of the '90s to life in downtown LA

The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, has revealed the fifty-six artists and collectives slated to participate in the Eighty-Second Whitney Biennial, opening March 8, 2026. This year’s iteration of the Biennial is curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer. The 2026 cohort is geographically diverse and heavy on millennials, with roughly 60 precent of […]

British photographer Martin Parr, known for his wry and incisive documentation of England’s social class structure, died on December 6 at his home in Bristol, England. He was seventy-three. Parr earlier this year revealed that he had been diagnosed with incurable myeloma. Shooting for Magnum Photos for decades, Parr produced what he called “subjective documentary”: […]

Maria Balshaw, who has led London’s Tate group of museums since 2017, has announced that she will step down as director in spring 2026. Balshaw, who previously served as director of the Manchester Art Gallery and the Whitworth Art Gallery, was the first woman to lead the organization, succeeding Nicholas Serota, who helmed Tate for nearly three decades. […]

Reporting from concurrent openings at Asia's legacy biennials

Frank Gehry, a towering figure in the worlds of architecture and design, died at his home in Santa Monica, California, on December 5, after a brief respiratory illness. Over the course of his eight-decade career, Gehry altered the look of modern cities with his ebulliently sculptural public buildings, becoming one of the best known and […]

The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, has named curator, writer, and educator Hamza Walker the winner of the 2026 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. The honor, presented annually since 1998, recognizes “outstanding curatorial achievements of individuals bringing innovative thinking, bold vision, and dedicated service to the field of exhibition-making,” per […]

The UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum has named Kathryn Kanjo as its new director. Kanjo, who for nine years has served as director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, will be the first leader of the institution, formed this past October when the University of California, Irvine, took over the Orange County Museum of Art and […]

Glasgow-born Nigerian artist Nnena Kalu has been named the winner of the 2025 Turner Prize. Considered the UK’s most prestigious award in the field of the visual arts, the prize comes with a £25,000 purse (about $33,000). Kalu, who is autistic and largely unable to communicate verbally, is known for colorful large-scale swirling abstract drawings and for […]

On the familiar comforts of Miami Art Week 2025

MoMA PS1, in Long Island City, New York, will offer free admission to all visitors from the beginning of 2026 through the end of 2028. The new pricing policy, which coincides with the institution’s fiftieth birthday, is made possible by a $900,000 gift from creative strategist and art collector Sonya Yu. The museum since 2015 […]