Before Zona Maco's launch in 2003 consolidated Mexico City as a global arts capital, artist-run spaces like La Panadería and Temístocles 44 attracted a generation of Mexican artists-among them Minerva Cuevas, Sofía Táboas and Pablo Vargas Lugo-interested in developing their practices beyond a commercial context through installations, self-published periodicals and time-based media. In the 1990s, the city's artist-run spaces created important blueprints for dozens of independent and underground venues that animate the contemporary arts scene across Mexico today. Bold and unconventional works coming out of that ecosystem will be on display across the city at three important fairs during Art Week: Salón Acme, Clavo and Material Fair.
The 2026 Vilcek Prizes in Fashion & Culture acknowledge those who preserve fashion history and enrich its documentation through photography, museum curations, historical database development, and educational programming. As part of its mission to uplift US immigrants working in the arts and sciences, the Vilcek Foundation has awarded $250,000 to five immigrant fashion professionals: Tanya Meléndez-Escalante, Diego Bendezu, Jalan and Jibril Durimel, and Natalie Nudell.
The artist is known for his absurdist paintings of animals with overly long legs, contorted bodies, or myriad mutant-like heads or limbs. They're often set amid woodlands or meadows evocative of 18th- and 19th-century academic landscape paintings or depictions of formal hunts. Instead, both domesticated and wild animals graze as normally as they would without dozens of heads or udders attached in unnatural places around their bodies.
The portrait of Albrecht Dürer's father that has been sitting in the collection of the National Gallery in London for over a century has long been regarded as a copy. However, an art historian argues, in a recently published book examining the Northern Renaissance painter's oeuvre in great depth, that the painting is real.
Forty years after The Last Resort photobook was first published, the photographs that brought the late Martin Parr to international attention-and criticism at home-will be the focus of an exhibition at his foundation in Bristol. Timed to coincide with the anniversary of the photobook and its exhibition at London's Serpentine Gallery in 1986, the show marks the foundation's reopening following the British photographer's death late last year.
The Doha debut of the venerable Swiss fair offers a stress test for the Art Basel brand, art fairs writ large, and the Gulf's collector base. One looming question: Can a market-oriented model take root within a state-led, institutionally focused cultural ecosystem? Sales on day one were limited, but sales are perhaps not the focus of this debut, which was aided by ample state support.
I first saw Stalker in the mid-1980s. I grew up in a very rural community, but I had a group of friends who all wanted something that we couldn't really get where we lived. With film, that was a possibility. I'm in my fifties now. I keep trying to figure out what I'm doing as an artist and how to keep going.
London-based, multidisciplinary artist Jana Frost is making "inspiration for fever dreams". Merging fashion photography with collage-art sensibilities, Jana employs cut-out animations, large-scale installations and a directorial style that prioritises several elements coming together to build physical, dreamlike environments. In a nutshell, Jana takes the aesthetic of pop-up books and makes them life-sized, turning dream imagery into physical reality. Sourcing public domain images from libraries and archives, Jana reworks materials then unifies them - and in the process, creates photographic works that play with time.
What gives me encouragement to continue to use my family as inspiration is that, if you look back in history, the famous portraits that Van Gogh did are portraits of people he knew, the postman or his friends. Intimate friends that, once you get that distance of time, you don't think, 'Well, this is someone he knew and that's kind of boring. It's portrait, in and of itself.
Spalding Gray used to perform a show called Interviewing the Audience. The celebrated monologist would invite a stranger he had met in the lobby to join him on stage. Through a sequence of innocuous questions, he would get them to open up about their lives. At one performance, a guest broke the audience's hearts by talking about her daughter's murder. At benefit nights, people living with HIV shared their tales. Other times, the anecdotes would be eccentric or amusing.
From April 10-26, the Big Umbrella Festival returns with nearly three weeks of free and pay-what-you-can performances, workshops and installations, all tailored for neurodivergent audiences. Big Umbrella, which launched in 2018, was the first large-scale performing arts festival of its kind and it's only grown more ambitious since. This year's edition spans dance, theater, comedy, music, visual art and outdoor installations, welcoming kids, adults, families and first-time arts-goers into spaces designed to be flexible, relaxed and judgment-free.
A poor girl who dies of a broken heart. Her perfect lover, who pretended to be poor, was actually rich and engaged to another. Sounds like the poor girl has no recourse until she becomes a vengeful spirit. It's not another superhero movie, but a ballet called Giselle. With performers from Ukraine, Italy, Spain, the USA and Japan, Giselle is a United Nations of dancers. Many have called this performance breathtaking and this is a unique chance for people to take their families to see
When Cynthia Erivo steps onto the Noel Coward Theatre stage on February 4th, she won't just be playing Dracula. She'll be playing Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra, Van Helsing, and nineteen other characters from Bram Stoker's gothic masterpiece. All in one night. All by herself. The ambition alone would be noteworthy, but director Kip Williams has engineered something more extraordinary. The appeal reaches audiences of all ages seeking immersive spectacle, all drawn by the promise of technology serving storytelling rather than overshadowing it.
At Troubadour, we are driven by a belief in creating extraordinary spaces that inspire artists, audiences, and the stories they come together to share. The 3,000 seat venue is to be built in Greenwich Securing planning permission for the new Troubadour Greenwich Peninsula Theatre marks a major milestone for us, and an exciting new chapter in our commitment to bold, large-scale live performance.
Suddenly, on walks around London, I noticed that these poisonous plants were growing everywhere. Near my studio, I saw thorn apple, which is one of the most poisonous plants that grows wild in the U.K. Its sap is really poisonous. The plant was taller than me with these amazing, architectural, spiky seed pods. It looked so monstrous and intriguing, but I'd never noticed it until having done this reading.
The Senate passed a federal funding bill package on Friday, but temporarily blocked any additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), triggering another government shutdown. But unlike the shutdown that began in October, which lasted a record 43 days, this one won't force the Smithsonian Institution or the National Gallery of Art to close-and it's expected to be resolved quickly.
After a decade of big spending, Saudi Arabia is scaling back some massive Vision 2030 "gigaprojects" due to falling oil prices and budget constraints. What does this mean for the nation's big cultural projects and investments? Plus, all eyes are on the Gulf this week as the first edition of Art Basel Qatar gets underway. Plus, the NFT platform Nifty will shut down this month.
- Outsider Art Fair has announced 68 exhibitors for its 34th edition at Manhattan's Metropolitan Pavilion this March 19-22. First-timers include Gagné Contemporary (Toronto), Embajada (San Juan), and Nanjing Outsider Art Center. - A long-lost Renaissance portrait has resurfaced at the Winter Show at New York's Park Avenue Armory. The portrait of a preacher by Sofonisba Anguissola can be found on the booth of Old Master dealer Robert Simon. ( Artnet News)
A new art fair with a distinctive approach and locale is joining the international art world for the spring calendar: Art Cologne Palma Mallorca. While Mallorca is often framed as an idyllic Mediterranean escape, it has quietly developed into a vibrant art hub, and the fair builds on that momentum, positioning the island as a crossroads for international and regional art scenes.
This year's Art SG, which closed last month, featured an intriguing debut: South Asian Insights, a modest pavilion dedicated to contemporary art from the region. Part of the TVS Initiative for Indian and South Asian Contemporary Art, it was backed by India's TVS Motor Company, one of the world's largest two-wheel manufacturers, which has its global headquarters in Singapore. Eight galleries-five from India-were each given a wall to showcase art.
"In the past few months, the real-estate developer turned politician has torn down the East Wing of the White House in order to build a flashy $400m ballroom, added his name to the façade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (which he announced would for major renovations starting this summer), suggested painting the exterior of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) all white to "beautify" it, and pushed plans to build near the capital's historic centre."
