March 31, 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 Exclusive | The world’s 100 most visited museums in 2025: new venues a big hit with visitors by Lee Cheshire and Elena Goukassian for The Art Newspaper. New museums drove 2025’s biggest museum attendance gains.
Art Asia Pacific
Ashley Cheung, Alexey Morosov to Represent Kyrgyzstan at 2026 Venice Biennale
Aisha Traub Chan, Agosto Machado (d. 2026)
Michele Chan, Gabrielle Goliath to Present Canceled South African Pavilion in Venice
Aisha Traub Chan, Korea and Japan to Collaborate on Pavilions at 2026 Venice Biennale
Art in America
Ben Lerner, We Asked Ben Lerner to Name One Artwork He Considers a “Revelation”
The Art Newspaper
Sarvy Geranpayeh, Iran’s arts community and heritage suffer as US-Israeli attacks continue
Cyrus Naji, Christie’s to hold first South Asian Modern art sale in London in seven years
Catherine Hickley, Germany to create council to oversee restitution of colonial-era acquisitions
EDITOR’S PICK - Lee Cheshire and Elena Goukassian, Exclusive | The world’s 100 most visited museums in 2025: new venues a big hit with visitors: Our annual survey shows that some of the world’s most venerable institutions are still struggling to attract the number of visitors they had before Covid, but there is enthusiasm for new museums, and in regions such as Asia and Latin America
Dale Berning Sawa, How museum funding in Denmark has become reliant on visitor numbers
Scott Reyburn, Art trade stays buoyant amid global turmoil
Artforum
Liby Hays, Psychoanalysis as Chamber Drama: A Night at Artists Space
From the Editors, Trump-Mocking Gold Toilet Sculpture Pops Up On the National Mall
From the Editors, Works by Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse Snatched in Major Italian Art Heist
From the Editors, Agosto Machado, Whose Shrines Immortalized a Lost NYC Underground, Is Dead
From the Editors, Kate McNamara Named Director of Harvard’s Carpenter Center for Visual Arts
Artnet
Ben Davis, At the Met, Raphael’s Beauty Has a Dark Side
Richard Whiddington, Footballer Erling Haaland Gifts Rare Viking Saga Manuscript to Hometown Library
Vivienne Chow, $160 Million Auction Haul in Hong Kong Provides Much-Needed Momentum for the Region
Vittoria Benzine, Is This a Real Rembrandt? One Art Historian Thinks So
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Rare Leonora Carrington Sketches of Her Inner Turmoil Resurface in London Show
Richard Whiddington, One of Napoleon’s Sweaty Hats Was Just Rediscovered After a Century in Storage
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Thieves Snatch Renoir, Matisse, and Cézanne Works From Italian Museum
ARTnews
Hok-Hang Cheung, Hong Kong Marquee Art Sales Total $164.9 M., Up 18 Percent From Equivalent 2025 Auctions
Leigh Anne Miller, Artist and Filmmaker Steve McQueen Wins $172,000 Erasmus Prize
Andy Battaglia, Scholar Attributes Long-Suspected ‘Workshop Copy’ Painting to Rembrandt
Harrison Jacobs, Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ Could Leave Madrid for the First Time in Over 30 Years
Francesca Aton, Sky Hopinka Reframes the American Landscape at the Barnes Foundation
Maximilíano Durón, Thieves Make Off with $10 M. Worth of Art During Three-Minute Heist in Italy
Alex Greenberger, Giant Golden Toilet Sculpture Appears Near Lincoln Memorial in D.C.: ‘A Throne Fit for a King’
ArtReview
Gabriel Levine Brislin, Michael Fullerton: The Politics of Portraiture
BOMB
Saul Ostrow, Curtis Mitchell by Saul Ostrow
Cultured
Karly Quadros, Carlos Vega Combines Stones, Renaissance Frames, and Forgotten Celebrities to Make Paintings Designed to Transcend Time
Taylore Dafoe, MoMA’s Curators on Organizing the Marcel Duchamp Show: ‘The Difficulty Level Is at a 15 Out of 10’
Ralph DeLuca, Are You Ready to Accept Art as an Asset Class? Here Are 9 Ways to Navigate the Market Right Now
Family Style
Ted Loos, What If?
Sahir Ahmed, Life After Time
Frieze
Juliet Jacques, Jill Westwood’s Archive of Feminine Power
Hyperallergic
Rhea Nayyar, Brooklyn Museum’s Africa Collection to Get a Brand New Space
Isa Farfan, Thieves Steal Paintings Worth $10M by Cézanne, Matisse, and Renoir
Emma Cieslik, New Protest Art Lampoons Trump’s Gaudy Bathroom Redesign
Bella Bromberg, See Photos From New York’s Historic Anti-Trump Marches
Lauren Moya Ford, Juan Uslé’s Childhood Shipwrecks
Michael Glover, Turner and Constable Hit the Screen
The Los Angeles Times
Jessica Gelt, Shepard Fairey is not afraid of AI art and other lessons from the High Desert Art Fair
The New York Times
Penelope Green, Agosto Machado Is Dead; Artist Memorialized New York’s Avant-Garde
Observer
Dian Parker, Artemisia Gentileschi’s Revenge Is Still Radical
Elisa Carollo, Inside Gubgub Studios, Qatar’s First Artist-Led Platform for Cross-Disciplinary Creatives
Elisa Carollo, Across the Major Houses, Hong Kong’s March Sales Confirm a New Collecting Maturity
Daniel Grant, In Both Primary and Secondary Markets, Presentation Drives Price
Urgent Matter
Adam Schrader, Thieves steal paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse from Italian museum
Adam Schrader, New York Transit Museum workers unanimously vote to unionize
Adam Schrader, FBI returns 48 artifacts to Peru as records show Interpol inquiry activity in U.S. market
The Wall Street Journal
Lance Esplund, ‘Unrolling Eternity’ Review: Afterlife Artifacts at the Brooklyn Museum
The Washington Post
Stefano Pitrelli, Thieves steal works by Cézanne, Renoir, Matisse in less than 3 minutes
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.