Venice Biennale 2024

Venice Biennale 2024: the must-see pavilions in the Giardini

From cocoa-covered creations, spaceships and rotting fruit, here is our selection of top shows from the first preview day

Contested Congolese sculpture returns home, temporarily

The Balot sculpture will be in the Democratic Republic of Congo for six months, while a video of it shows simultaneously at the Venice Biennale

David D'Arcyabout 8 hours ago

Artist refuses to open Israel pavilion show at Venice Biennale without a ceasefire

Ruth Patir says that she and the curators will not open exhibition until Israel and Hamas reach “a ceasefire and hostage release agreement"

Gareth Harrisabout 5 hours ago

Anish Kapoor slams Venice Biennale title ‘Foreigners Everywhere’ for evoking ‘neo-fascism’

The artist says artistic director Adriano Pedrosa’s "dangerous slogan" reinforces the Italian government’s anti-migrant stance

Gareth Harrisabout 8 hours ago

Mark Bradford makes a surprise speech at Adriano Pedrosa's artist dinner

The artist, who represented the US in 2017, spoke about the artistic director's “generosity and quiet power to change things”

Louisa Buck1 day ago

Latest

Study for Winston Churchill portrait that was famously burnt is up for sale

Destruction of final portrait by Graham Sutherland was captured in an episode of "The Crown". Now a study is being toured by Sotheby’s

Riah Pryorabout 2 hours ago

Thomas Heatherwick’s controversial Vessel public art piece in New York to reopen

The 150ft-tall, $200m outdoor installation at Manhattan’s Hudson Yards development has been closed since 2021 following a series of suicides

Benjamin Suttonabout 7 hours ago

Monira Al Qadiri exhibition to open Johann König’s new Munich gallery in a former power plant

König says the new space, König Bergson, is one of the largest commercial galleries for contemporary art in Germany

Catherine Hickleyabout 5 hours ago

'Art should have scores like film': Brooklyn Museum appoints first composer-in-residence

Niles Luther began his composing career working with the artist Kehinde Wiley

Chinma Johnson-Nwosuabout 4 hours ago

St Mark’s architect warns that Venice’s historic houses are falling down

In an interview, Maria Piana, the architect responsible for the famous basilica, says urgent action is needed to save the city’s houses from rising water levels

Opinion

'Enjoy the Venice Biennale, everyone—but be aware it's taking place in a dying city'

Venice can still be saved from the rising water level: here’s how

'UK school art curriculum should reflect diversity efforts in our institutions'

Research by the Runnymede Trust found that only 2.3% of artists named in GCSE Art papers over the last five years were Black or Asian

'Building your way to sustainability is a bad idea, no matter how green your new building is'

Renovations need to win out over new extensions, says sustainability professor Martin Müller, and museums need to 'get back to basics'

Being ‘discovered’ late in life can be maddening—but it can have advantages

The Buffalo AKG Art Museum just opened a Stanley Whitney retrospective—the 77-year-old artist's first museum survey

It’s time to end the predatory practices of 'sleeper hunters'

Sleeper hunter dealers must recognise they have an asymmetrical relationship to vulnerable people pressured by circumstance to sell off their treasured heirlooms

Faith Ringgold (1930-2024)

The New York artist was known as much for the visceral quality of her political paintings of the early 1960s as she was for the haunting, historically charged, power of her textile narratives

Faith Ringgold, acclaimed for the power of paintings and quilts that tell stories of the Civil Rights movement, has died, aged 93

A champion of fellow Black and women artists, the New York-born painter and sculptor made a second reputation as writer and illustrator of admired children's stories

Louis Jebb14 April 2024

The Big Review: Faith Ringgold at the New Museum

Each work in the Harlem-born artist’s biggest retrospective to date deserves equal attention

Charles Moore11 March 2022

Faith Ringgold discusses civil rights and children's books in solo London show

Acclaimed for her paintings and quilts, which weave in stories of the Civil Rights movement from a black female perspective, Faith Ringgold is about to open a solo show at the Serpentine Gallery, London—her first in a European institution.

Louisa Buck5 June 2019

Faith Ringgold mural will be transferred from women’s prison to the Brooklyn Museum

The work, dedicated to incarcerated women on Rikers Island, was completed in 1972 and was once almost completely destroyed

Gabriella Angeleti3 January 2022

US institutions celebrate Faith Ringgold

Major acquisitions, complementary showcases plus a New Yorker cover coincide with the artist’s retrospective at the New Museum

Gabriella Angeleti24 March 2022

TAN careers

We're hiring! Ad Sales Manager—digital platforms

The Art Newspaper is looking for an enthusiastic candidate to join its commercial team

Art market

Hong Kong edition of Art021 fair to launch this year

The new event is supported by the public Mega Ace Fund, which subsidises large cultural projects in the Special Administrative Region

New York’s Meredith Rosen makes waves across the Atlantic

The dealer’s discovery-driven programme, which embraces both contemporary and unsung 20th-century artists, is finding outsize success in Europe

Osman Can Yerebakanabout 8 hours ago

Early sales at the Dallas Art Fair prove even a solar eclipse can't overshadow Texas's hot market

As demand for art in Dallas and the rest of Texas heats up, dealers are eager to get a foothold in the Lone Star State—including at the new-ish Dallas Invitational satellite fair

Art Market Eye | Can Inigo Philbrick return to the art market?

The convicted art dealer is out of jail—and likely to return to the trade

SP-Arte’s 20th edition puts the focus on Latin America

While earlier editions saw more global participation, South America’s biggest art fair has become a regional showcase and a more inclusive reflection of Brazilian contemporary art

Museums & Heritage

Contested Congolese sculpture returns home, temporarily

The Balot sculpture will be in the Democratic Republic of Congo for six months, while a video of it shows simultaneously at the Venice Biennale

David D'Arcyabout 8 hours ago

Paintings saved from Notre Dame blaze to go on show in Paris

Religious works, restored by conservation experts, will be returned to the historic cathedral on the Seine

Gareth Harris1 day ago

St Mark’s architect warns that Venice’s historic houses are falling down

In an interview, Maria Piana, the architect responsible for the famous basilica, says urgent action is needed to save the city’s houses from rising water levels

'Enjoy the Venice Biennale, everyone—but be aware it's taking place in a dying city'

Venice can still be saved from the rising water level: here’s how

A glimpse into New York City's Dutch heritage 400 years later

The few remaining houses that recall New Amsterdam are also reminding visitors of the overlooked histories of local Indigenous and Black communities

Exhibitions

War, refugees, destruction: how Venice Biennale 2024 will reflect our era

Thousands have called for Israel’s pavilion to be cancelled, a proposed Palestinian exhibition was rejected, while Ukraine’s pavilion deals with its ongoing war

On process: Refik Anadol seeks to demystify AI art by showing how it is put together

The media artist's "Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive" at Serpentine Galleries, London, goes for radical clarity on its raw data sources and the make-up of Anadol's artificial intelligence Large Nature Model

Secrets of Caravaggio’s last masterpiece revealed in new London show

The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula painting will take centre stage in a forthcoming show at the National Gallery

China, France and a unifying love of bling: Palace Museum show draws on parallels between cultures

The exhibition in Beijing of 17th- and 18th-century objects from the Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles will look at how artisans on opposite sides of the world influenced each other

The Big Review: Joan Jonas at the Museum of Modern Art, New York ★★★★★

An arresting and endearing retrospective of the trailblazing performance artist that you will want to see again and again

Technology

News, background and analysis on the latest tech developments—artificial intelligence tools; Web3, the blockchain, NFTs; virtual and augmented reality; social media platforms—and how they affect the art market, museums, artists and curators.

Aleksandra Artamonovskaja is appointed head of arts for TriliTech, the entrepreneurship team supporting Tezos blockchain

Artamonovskaja, a leading consultant and moderator in the Web3 world, will oversee development of opportunities for artists across the Tezos ecosystem

Louis Jebb1 day ago
Technologyfeature

On process: Refik Anadol seeks to demystify AI art by showing how it is put together

The media artist's "Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive" at Serpentine Galleries, London, goes for radical clarity on its raw data sources and the make-up of Anadol's artificial intelligence Large Nature Model

Robert Alice breaks new ground with auction of generative art NFTs on Christie's 3.0

Auction house sees maturing of market since the heady days of 2021 as works by the digital art pioneer are sold in combination with launch of their catalogue raisonné-like historical survey "On NFTs"

Technologyanalysis

Quantum leap: how a decade of NFTs has changed digital art

Two books take a look at the past and future of the non-fungible token. Once seen as the creature of market hype, the NFT now promises the first shared technical standard for the digital art world

London's Serpentine Galleries calls for artists and institutions to become ‘stewards’ of data in face of rising interest in AI

The London gallery's fourth annual Future Arts Ecosystems report addresses a pressing need for bodies to address the use of artificial intelligence, for their own benefit and for the public good

Proud mum Madonna drops in on son Rocco’s Miami show

His "Pack a Punch" paintings are inspired by Thai boxers

Museum employee hangs his own art in Munich institution—and gets the chop

Budding artist surreptitiously displayed his work alongside art by Andy Warhol

The Birth of Venus in bottle tops—courtesy of Bottlecelli

Supermarket chain Lidl commissioned a new version of the 15th-century masterpiece

The show to see in Venice with your bosom buddy

Exhibition 'celebrates the iconography and symbolism of breasts', with works by Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marcel Duchamp and Laure Prouvost

The business of Basquiat—Taylor Swift's beau produces new documentary while Gagosian shows LA works

Travis Kelce, the American football star who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs, is making a programme about the late street artist

Obituaries

Dinh Q. Lê, master of multimedia art and mentor to fellow artists across southeast Asia, has died, aged 56

Vietnamese-American artist, best known for his distinctive photo-weaving works, made powerful statements in photography, video, sculpture and installation that challenged politics, history and memory

Richard Serra, creator of audacious steel sculptures, has died aged 85

The American sculptor received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale

Antoine Predock, architect of distinctive museums in the US and Canada, has died, aged 87

His Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Tang Teaching Museum and Tacoma Art Museum were typical of an approach that melded modernism and post-modernism into a characteristically unpredictable aesthetic

Lucas Samaras, tirelessly adventurous New York artist, has died, aged 87

The Greek American artist was always willing to try new forms and materials, working across sculpture, photography, performance, installation and more

Remembering Jacob Rothschild, banker, collector, philanthropist, and a towering figure in the British art world

A scion of the famous banking dynasty, he led the National Gallery, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Waddesdon Manor

Adventures with Van Gogh

Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey, our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist. Published every Friday, his stories range from newsy items about this most intriguing artist to scholarly pieces based on his own meticulous investigations and discoveries.

Green is the New Black

In this monthly column, our correspondent Louisa Buck looks at how the art industry is responding to our climate and ecological crisis

How an art centre in a former power station is harnessing the word ‘no’ to help save the planet

Germany’s E-Werk Luckenwalde, which seeks to be environmentally friendly in all aspects of its work, is hosting a festival that highlights the wide-ranging potential of restraint

Sponsored byCrozier

Book Club

A golden age for photobooks? As publishers join forces we find out what the future holds

The London-based publisher Mack is acquiring smaller firms and widening its visual culture coverage

An expert's guide to Frank Auerbach: three must-read books (and a film) on the German-British painter

All you ever wanted to know about Auerbach, from a biography by one of his sitters to a collection of essays about his drawings—selected by the Courtauld Gallery curator Barnaby Wright

Former Tate Britain director Penelope Curtis on why she became a novelist

As the art historian makes the move into fiction writing, she tells us how learning about her family history inspired her

Books

New book reveals how art dealer Léonce Rosenberg trod the line between salesman and Modern art's great champion

He declared the auction to be art’s true benchmark, but Rosenberg was also a committed promoter of the avant-garde

Israel-Hamas war

For many in Israel’s art community, protests have replaced practice

Six months after 7 October, Israeli artists and arts workers remain active in popular movements calling for the release of hostages and ousting of Benjamin Netanyahu

‘Met Museum, you’re complicit’: artists and activists take over museum’s front steps with giant pro-Palestine quilt

A two-hour rally at the New York museum drew many supportive cheers and honks, plus a handful of antagonistic shouts

Israel in contravention of UN court ruling as it carries out ‘genocidal military campaign’ in Gaza, new Forensic Architecture report says

Report refutes Israel’s claims in The Hague that it has implemented "humanitarian measures" to prevent the loss of civilian life

German museum director at centre of row over cancelled Candice Breitz exhibition steps down

Andrea Jahn will leave her post four months after Breitz's show was cancelled over her views on the conflict in Gaza

Neon work in Whitney Biennial features unexpected ‘free Palestine’ message

The biennial’s curators were unaware of the statement in a work by Demian DinéYazhi’ prior to the exhibition preview

The Week in Art

A podcast bringing you the latest news from the art world, every week

The Week in Art podcast | Marlborough Gallery closes, Rose B. Simpson in New York, Caravaggio’s final painting

Looking back at the history of the pioneering dealership in post-war art, plus a thought-provoking new installation in Madison Square Park and Caravaggio's The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula

A brush with... podcast

A podcast that asks artists the questions you've always wanted to

Podcast | A brush with... Michael Raedecker

An in-depth interview with the artist on his cultural experiences and greatest influences, from the New Romantics of the 1980s to a 1992 edition of Documenta

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by David Clack
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