June 5, 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 Artists Threaten Lawsuit as Venice Biennale Award Crisis Deepens by Jo Lawson-Tancred for Artnet. Nearly 100 artists have threatened legal action after Biennale organizers refused to remove them from a visitors’ choice award ballot they had boycotted in protest.
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Jennifer Krasinski, Carol Bove
Art in America
Ara H. Merjian, A MoMA Retrospective Proves Duchamp Was More Sincere Than He Seems
The Art Newspaper
Melanie Gerlis, Comment | As Pace slashes business, could shrinking be the next growth model?
Gareth Harris, Marjane Satrapi, French-Iranian graphic novelist, dies at 56
James Imam, More than 100 artists threaten legal action against Venice Biennale
Osman Can Yerebakan, Miami Beach’s Bass Museum of Art hires Philippe Vergne as artistic director and chief curator
Tim Schneider, Comment | Farewell, Los Angeles’s ‘punk’ Box gallery
Martin Bailey, Philadelphia opens its Van Gogh Sunflowers display with a very rare loan from London’s National Gallery
Artforum
Ela Bittencourt, “A City Tattooed with Neons”: In São Paulo, Lygia Pape Meets Queer Confessions
Bryan Barcena, Art, Land, Money, Data: Ecology Alarms Go Off in Reno
From the Editors, Miami’s Bass Museum Appoints Philippe Vergne as Artistic Director and Chief Curator
From the Editors, Marjane Satrapi, Author of “Persepolis,” Dies at 56
From the Editors, Artists & Mothers Organization Announces 2026 Childcare Grant Recipients
From the Editors, Kulapat Yantrasast Named Artistic Director of 2027 Bukhara Biennial
Artnet
Vittoria Benzine, ‘Scandalous’ $60 Million Modigliani Nude Headlines Sotheby’s Lewis Collection Sale
Vittoria Benzine, Serial Museum Leader Philippe Vergne Named Artistic Director of the Bass in Miami Beach
EDITOR’S PICK - Jo Lawson-Tancred, Artists Threaten Lawsuit as Venice Biennale Award Crisis Deepens: Artists accuse La Biennale of ignoring their withdrawal requests, escalating an awards controversy that has shadowed this year’s exhibition.
Vittoria Benzine, Newly Confirmed Lucian Freud Debuts in London
Sonia Manalili and Kate Brown, Re-Air: How Raphael Made—and Unmade—the Renaissance
ARTnews
Anne Doran, Stonehenge’s Altar Stone Was Hauled 430 Miles From Northeast Scotland, New Study Argues
Tessa Solomon, Trump To Divert $90 M. in National Park Revenue to D.C. Construction Projects
Harrison Jacobs, New School Lays Off 87 Staff and Faculty As It Attemps to Plug $48 M. Deficit
Brian Boucher, A New French Study Says It Is Safe to Ship the Bayeux Tapestry to the British Museum
Harrison Jacobs, The Pope Will Inaugurate Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família After 144 Years of Construction
Scott Roxborough, Marjane Satrapi, ‘Persepolis’ Director, Dies at 56
Brian Boucher, Museum Veteran Philippe Vergne Joins Miami’s Bass Museum as Artistic Director and Chief Curator
ArtReview
Martin Herbert, Francis Picabia: Against Bad Breath and Cathedrals of Shit
The Brooklyn Rail
Maria Stavrinaki, Ad Reinhardt’s Posthistory
Julian Nykolak, To What End Painting?
Dieter Schwarz, One Day After Another
Alistair Rider, Songs of the Ongoing
From the Editors, Jane Swavely with Molly Warnock
Frieze
From the Editors, 6 Shows to See Across Europe This June
Frida Sandström, Olof Marsja Surveys the Aftermath of Commodity Culture
The Guardian
Eddy Frankel, Simeon Barclay review – shut out by the gates of a drab modern Britain
Jonathan Jones, Mind-melting MC Escher, mesmerising Marilyn and the greatness of Glasgow – the week in art
Hanno Hauenstein, ‘They are disturbing the dead’: reconstructing the site of the forgotten first genocide of the 20th century
Sarah Aitken, I just inhaled 2.4bn year old oxygen in Tasmania. Now I’m part of an exhibition until I die
Jonathan Jones, MC Escher review – hallucinatory insights from the master of the mind-bending staircase
Hyperallergic
Valentina Di Liscia, Art Movements: Meet MoMA’s New Photo Chief
Anna Lee, Marjane Satrapi, “Persepolis” Author and Human Rights Fighter, Dies at 56
Lakshmi Rivera Amin, Required Reading
Nereya Otieno, The Black Photographers Who Exposed My Own Brainwashing
Valentina Di Liscia and Rhea Nayyar, Pace Cuts 50 Workers and 50 Artists, Citing a “Broken” Gallery Model
Eileen G’Sell, The Best Part of “Moss & Freud” Is When It’s Over
The Los Angeles Times
Shana Nys Dambrot, Dataland defies expectations. But will L.A. embrace the world’s first AI arts museum?
The New York Times
Frank Rose, At the Ambitious New A.I Museum, You Feel the Art, and It Feels You Right Back
Jason Bailey, Why Westerns Still Matter
The New Yorker
From the Editors, Cowboy Heaven, in MOMA’s Westerns Series
Observer
Michaela Zee, Tinashe and Rebecca Black Electrified MoMA’s 2026 Party in the Garden
Dan Duray, The Aldrich’s First Decennial Takes Stock of Contemporary Art in Connecticut
Elisa Carollo, When Great Collections Come to Market, Dane Jensen Makes Sure Nothing Is Left on the Table
Elisa Carollo, Su Xiaobai’s Meditative Material Practice Is the Focus of One of the Biennale’s Most Commanding Shows
Urgent Matter
Adam Schrader, Pace roster cuts hit living artists, photography hardest
Adam Schrader, Balloon Museum announces details for inaugural exhibit at new New York headquarters
Adam Schrader, Och and Rockefeller vanish from MoMA trustee page; Leon Black does not
Adam Schrader, Records show UT Austin leaders concerned about ‘activities’ around anti-fascist art show
Adam Schrader, Public Records: UT Austin follow-up emails on anti-fascist student art show
Vanity Fair
Nate Freeman, The Richest Woman in the World Has Done It Again With Her Art Museum—in the Middle of Arkansas
Wallpaper
Jamilah Rose-Roberts, Inside Yinka Ilori’s ‘Joy Through Resistance’, a powerful meditation on faith, family and diasporic resilience
Hannah Silver, As War Horse returns to the National Theatre, we go behind the design
Hannah Silver, Anne Imhof’s performances can be raw, haunting, vulnerable: see her London show
From the Editors, Out of office: What the Wallpaper* editors are looking forward to in June
Emi Eleode, London is open for art lovers! Ten shows to see at Gallery Weekend 2026
Whitehot
Ayse Sarioglu, Foreign Tongues: Nathaniel Mary Quinn on The Rolling Stones
Margaret Rand, Haroun Hayward and the Return to Landscape Painting
Art Spell is a subscription-based daily roundup of art news and reviews to help you stay current with what’s being reported on in the visual arts community. The profits from Art Spell are donated to organizations supporting art journalists and writers.