July 30, 2026
Your morning brew of art world media
Welcome to Art Spell, a daily, comprehensive roundup of art news and reviews for the visual arts community. Today’s Editor’s Pick is Arts groups in US cities that increased culture funding during Covid have rebounded more quickly: report by Daniel Grant for The Art Newspaper. A new SMU DataArts report finds highlights the impact of local government investment on cultural organizations’ resilience.
Art in America
Emily Watlington, A Museum Dares to Reveal What It Really Costs to Make an Exhibition
The Art Newspaper
Gareth Harris, ‘Amazon-style’ conditions: Prospect union members overwhelmingly vote to strike at London’s V&A museums
Helen Stoilas, Betye Saar, assemblage artist who reframed racist and sexist imagery, has died, aged 99
Alexander Morrison, Lessons from Notre-Dame inform reconstruction of Copenhagen Stock Exchange building
Aimee Dawson, Artist starts legal case against Meta for deleting her Instagram account
EDITOR’S PICK - Daniel Grant, Arts groups in US cities that increased culture funding during Covid have rebounded more quickly: report: While municipal funding covered a modest share of organisations’ expenses, it had an outsized impact in cities that increased their cultural support, a new study from DataArts shows
Gareth Harris, English Heritage debuts daily prize draw for ‘private time’ at Stonehenge this August
Elena Goukassian, Treasures from Ancient Egypt’s ‘Golden City’, and the stories of the people who made them, revealed in San Francisco show
Artforum
From the Editors, Simone Forti, Giant of Postmodern Dance, Dead at 91
From the Editors, Pair Who Covered Picasso with Photo of Palestinian Mother and Child Found Guilty of Criminal Damage
From the Editors, Beleaguered Philadelphia Museum of Art Reports $10 Million Deficit
From the Editors, SFMOMA Announces it Has Acquired Hundreds of Artworks in 2026
Artnet
Min Chen, Inside Filmmaker Gregg Araki’s Kinky New Art-World Romp
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Will Tariff Tensions Ebb for the Art Trade? And Other Art World Matters
Richard Whiddington, Fra Angelico’s First Major Altarpiece Gets a Groundbreaking Repair
Vittoria Benzine, A Trove of Eminem’s Sneakers Hits the Auction Block
Min Chen, Gee’s Bend Meets Ralph Lauren—and Other Art World Matters
ARTnews
Karen Chernick, The Bayeux Tapestry Has Returned to the UK for the First Time in Nearly 1,000 Years—Here’s What to Know
Francesca Aton, With a Massive Oyster Installation, Artist Alan Michelson Wants to Connect New York Harbor to Its Indigenous Ancestry
Devorah Lauter, Simone Forti, Leading Figure of New York’s Judson Dance Theater Scene, Has Died at 91
Maximilíano Durón, Harvard Art Museums Tested Out Using Generative AI to Animate 18th-Century Painting as Part of Marketing Campaign
Anne Doran, French Scientists Precisely Date a Paleolithic Cave Painting for the First Time as About 13,000 Years Old
Andy Battaglia, Yoshitomo Nara’s First Show with David Zwirner Slated for October in New York
Daniel Cassady, Christie’s to Sell Monet Masterpiece From Durand-Ruel Collection in Paris
Tessa Solomon, Mayor Mamdani’s Pied-à-Terre Tax Puts Art World Heavyweights in the Spotlight
Harrison Jacobs, American Alliance of Museums Slams Trump Administration’s Report on the Smithsonian
Brian Boucher, Hankering to See Salvator Mundi? An Artist Opened a Museum of the World’s Priciest Painting in His Brooklyn Lobby
Andy Battaglia, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair Announces Exhibitors for Upcoming London Edition
Daniel Cassady, Metis Co-Founder Rebecca Fine on Why Art Lending Is Becoming a Bigger Part of Wealth Management
ArtReview
Fi Churchman, ‘Snow’ by Sohrab Hura, reviewed
From the Editors, Simone Forti, pioneer of postmodern dance, 1935 – 2026
Frieze
Shalmali Shetty, Chitra Ganesh’s Descent into the Underworld
Louisa Elderton, Mooni Perry Uncovers the Ghosts of Empire
The Guardian
Anita Chaudhuri, ‘We have to become warriors’: the fight to save the world’s only women’s sculpture park
Luke Harding, ‘Lenin was an enemy of humanity’: Why Kyiv wants to put Cossack chief statue in place of Soviet leader
Eromo Egbejule, Artists find creative haven in Côte d’Ivoire’s ‘calm and soothing’ Grand Bassam
Hyperallergic
Agnish Ray, Madrid Museum Puts Picasso in Dialogue With “African Guernica”
Rhea Nayyar, Sexual Assault Allegations Get Artists Canceled More Than Murder, Study Finds
Isabella Segalovich, The Shakers Weren’t Minimalists
Lisa Yin Zhang, Remembering Betelhem Makonnen, Betye Saar, and Keith A. Morrison
Hrag Vartanian, A Precious Garden Grows at MoMA PS1
Debra Brehmer, Widline Cadet’s Doubled Diaspora
The Los Angeles Times
Jane Horowitz, ‘It’s been the right time for a long time’: Behind Watts Towers’ $22-million campus renovation
The New York Times
Roslyn Sulcas, Iris van Herpen: Please Pleat With Me
Observer
Jasmine Lobe, Inside the First Watermill Center Summer Festival Without Robert Wilson
Elisa Carollo, How Nicola Lees Recentered the Aspen Art Museum Around Artists Instead of Objects
Puck
Marion Maneker, Condition Report: Jennifer Wright, Christie’s Old Masters
The Wall Street Journal
Michael J. Lewis, The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library: At One With Nature
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