Welcome to Art Spell, a daily, comprehensive roundup of art news and reviews for the visual arts community. Today’s Editor’s Pick is Riots brought Art Basel Paris to a close — is it a sign of things to come? by Melanie Gerlis for Financial Times. Art Basel Paris’s early closure highlights the growing risks geopolitical tensions pose to art fairs and how the art market operates in a volatile landscape.
Art in America
Emily Watlington, Walid Raad’s Way of Working Is Inspired by the Mirrors in Vampire Movies
The Art Newspaper
Sarvy Geranpayeh, V&A proposing significant cuts to its academy amid financial pressures
Anna Brady, Museum acquisitions round-up: a Joan Jonas dance performance and a squirrelly readymade
Florence Hallett, Art Povera’s Marisa Merz honoured with trio of Turin shows
Senay Boztas, Pop-up tattoo studio opens at Amsterdam’s Rembrandt House Museum
Constanza Ontiveros Valdés, 2,500-year-old solar observatory identified in Mexico
Carlie Porterfield, Houston cancer centre expands its art collection and curatorial ambitions
Artnet
Min Chen, Klimt Landscape That Once Made Auction History Could Net $80M at Christie’s
Sonia Manalili, Monet Madness in France
Richard Whiddington, Monet, Warhol Headline Sotheby’s First Art Auction in Abu Dhabi
ARTnews
Hikmat Mohammed, Former Presidents Obama, Clinton Mock Trump’s White House Interiors With Comparisons to ‘Saddam Hussein’ and ‘Liberace’s Bathroom’
Hikmat Mohammed, Sotheby’s Deepens Abu Dhabi Relationship With Inaugural Fine Art Auction in December
Maximilíano Durón, An Abbey in France Discovered Previously Unknown Wall Sketches by Odilon Redon
Brian Boucher, Christie’s Brings a Blockbuster Klimt Landscape to Auction, Tagged at $80 M. and Guaranteed to Sell
Hikmat Mohammed, 50 Artworks by Artists Who Lived and Worked in India Gifted to the Tate
Brian Boucher, In a Historic Blunder, Wu-Tang Clan Sold an Album as a Unique Artwork—A New Doc Tells the Story of an Architect of the Sale
Leigh Anne Miller, Prized Monet Paintings at the Center of Milwaukee Art Museum and MFA St. Petersburg’s World Series Wager
Tessa Solomon, Monument to Iwo Jima Flag-Raising Near Quantico Vandalized
Harrison Jacob, Artist Duo Brognon Rollin Awarded 2026 Prix Marcel Duchamp, France’s Top Art Prize
Anne Doran, Korean Culture Ministry to Audit Former Director of the National Museum
Andy Battaglia, Paul Stankard, Renowned Glass Paperweight Artist, Dead at 83
Hikmat Mohammed, Louvre, Picasso Museum, Musée d’Orsay Will Close Saturday In Anticipation of Hard-Left Groups Targeting Public Buildings, Says Interior Minister
Brian Boucher, Comcast Cofounder Gives $20 M. to Philadelphia Museum of Art, One of its Largest Gifts, To Greatly Expand Education Spaces
Financial Times
EDITOR’S PICK - Melanie Gerlis, Riots brought Art Basel Paris to a close — is it a sign of things to come?: Gallerists are bracing themselves for operating in a world of escalating tensions — and collectors are increasingly attuned to the risks.
Constance Ayrton, Six makers ‘challenging what’s possible’ at Design Doha
Josh Spero, More than 1mn antiquities returned to countries of origin
Gazelle Mba, Jordan Casteel on the art of being seen
Lucy Davies, Adolphe de Meyer’s Venice palazzo of dreams
Frieze
Lisette May Monroe, Sophie Calle Edits Her Own Myth
Christopher Alessandrini, FotoFocus Biennial Entangles the Hyperlocal and the Global
The Guardian
Rachel Hall, Bayeux tapestry becomes pop culture hit as young people more keen to see exhibition than top films
Hyperallergic
Zoe Cooper, Artists Take to the Streets Amid Massive Protests in France
Hakim Bishara, This Is Class War
Naima Morelli, Portrait of a Paris Art Week on Fire
Duaa Shaa, How Art Can Deliver Justice for Refugees
Martha Wilson, The War on Art Is Repeating Itself
Rhea Nayyar, Kid Cudi to Write, Direct, and Star as Basquiat in New Biopic
Neil Price, The Center Cannot Hold at the Toronto Biennial
Anna Lee, Scientists Contest Dating of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”
The Los Angeles Times
Elitsa Gadeva and Sylvie Corbet, Louvre and other museums closing for Saturday protests as French authorities deploy 70,000 officers
The New Yorker
Rebecca Mead, The Victoria & Albert Museum Expands, Twice
Observer
Dan Duray, One Fine Show: “Carsten Höller, Two” at Beijing’s UCCA Center for Contemporary Art
Christa Terry, Between Blue-Chip Sculpture and Homespun Art, Grand Rapids Is Finding Its Voice
Elisa Carollo, How a Paris Art Collective Turned Squatting into a Sustainable Model of Artistic Production
Elisa Carollo, Emily Mae Smith Paints Worlds on the Edge of Transformation
Dan Duray, One Fine Show: “Haas Brothers, Uncanny Valley” at the Blanton Museum of Art
Urgent Matter
Adam Schrader, My arrest at Standing Rock, ten years later
Adam Schrader, Immersive tech and A.I. fuel a rise in participatory art
The Wall Street Journal
William Meyers, ‘Flashback: Two Centuries of Baltimore Photography’ Review: A City Through Many Lenses
Brian P. Kelly, ‘Pioneers in Hand Papermaking: 50 Years of Innovation at Dieu Donné’ Review: Unfolding a Material’s Potential
Lance Esplund, ‘Self-Portrait, Age 23’: Rembrandt’s Personal, Painterly Revelations
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