Welcome to Art Spell, a daily, comprehensive roundup of art news and reviews for the visual arts community. Today’s Editor’s Pick is AI Companies Are Destroying Books by the Millions. What Will It Mean for Art? by Brian Boucher for ARTnews. AI companies’ destruction of books for LLM training has alarmed some artists, while others see physical and digital books coexisting.
Art in America
Emily Watlington, Juanita McNeely Painted Abortion’s Messy Truth
The Art Newspaper
Mercedes Ezquiaga, Malba picks architect for expansion that will double its exhibition space
Martin Bailey, Dutch museum puts all of its Van Goghs on display for the first time in more than two decades
Ben Luke, Giotto restored in Florence, Biennale de Lyon, Remedios Varo—podcast
Artforum
Yuki Higashino, Drawing Out of Painting: Frank Bowling’s Works on Paper
From the Editors, Pace Prints Buys Brand X, Becoming One of the Largest Printmakers in the US
From the Editors, Peter Max, Icon of Psychedelic Art, Dies at 88
From the Editors, Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent Opens in Uzbekistan
From the Editors, Islamic Arts Biennale Announces Curatorial Team for 2027
Artnet
Richard Whiddington, Naomi Campbell’s McQueen Ensemble Fetches $1.3 Million at Fair Warning Couture Sale
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Move Over, Prado: Madrid Has a New Star Museum
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Uffizi Removes Famed Caravaggio After Flash Flood Soaks Gallery
Andrew Russeth, I Prefer the $25,100 Jeff Koons Watch to the $448,000 Jeff Koons Watch
Richard Whiddington, Peter Max, Whose Psychedelic Paintings Defined the 1960s, Dies at 88
Min Chen, Pace Prints Acquires Brand X Editions, Creating a Printmaking Giant
Andrew Russeth, The Met Secures Trove of Chang Dai-Chien’s Luminous Paintings
Margaret Carrigan, Frieze Abu Dhabi’s VIP Invites Just Went Out. Who’s Actually Going?
Richard Whiddington, Long-Hidden Monet Heads to Auction With Record Estimate
Sonia Manalili and Ben Davis, Re-Air: Arthur Jafa’s Radical Theory of Readymade Art
ARTnews
Daniel Cassady, IFPDA Continues to Expand with 2027 Edition, Lining Up 76 Exhibitors
Hikmat Mohammed, Rodrigo Cass, Brazilian Artist Who Strove for ‘Sensitive Geometry,’ Has Died at 43
Andy Battaglia, Hirshhorn Museum to Install ‘Eternally Unswimmable’ Pool by Elmgreen & Dragset in Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.
Maximilíano Durón, Sharif Bey Wins Inaugural Spector Craft Prize
Brian Boucher, The US Air Force Nearly Nuked the Moon. Amid a New Space Race, Artist Jitish Kallat Revisits the Secret Cold War Scheme
Maximilíano Durón, Plaintiffs in Ongoing Kennedy Center Lawsuit Call for Leadership to Step Aside or for Judge to Appoint Receivership
Tessa Solomon, PR Firm Cultural Counsel to Restructure with Founder Adam Abdalla Transitioning to New Role
Daniel Cassady, Pace Prints Acquires Brand X Editions
Francesca Aton, United States Repatriates 58 Cultural Artifacts to China
Brian Boucher, Trump Administration Moves Forward With Warning Signs Outside Smithsonian
EDITOR’S PICK - Brian Boucher, AI Companies Are Destroying Books by the Millions. What Will It Mean for Art?: Artists Paul Chan, Oliver Wasow, Pablo Helguera, and Harold Ancart consider the notion of a post-book future.
Devorah Lauter, Monet ‘Iris’ Painting—Last of its Kind in Private Hands—Could Break French Record at Sotheby’s Paris
ArtReview
Sharmilla Ganesan, ‘Saffron Crossings’: Rajinder Singh’s Still, Complicated Seas
Zoe Whitfield, Cinema in the Age of Consent
The Boston Globe
Financial Times
Christian House, Francis Bacon’s beautiful detritus
Frieze
From the Editors, The Code Universe: Artists Interrogating a Post-Digital Age
The Guardian
Jonathan Jones, Mindboggling Magritte, artists respond to a world in peril and a squished Citroën – the week in art
Joe Hinchliffe, Artists boycotted this portrait prize over AI entries. Now they’re back to take them on
Hyperallergic
From the Editors, Ed Sheeran Should Stop Thinking Out Loud
Valentina Di Liscia, The Best and the Absolute Worst of the TIME 100 List
Anna Lee, A Tiny Hot Dog Art Show and Other Treasures at Affordable Art Fair
Aaron Short, Artists Fear Displacement as ChaShaMa Forced to Vacate Studios
Trelani Michelle, African-American Blacksmiths Forge a Lineage of Sankofa
Olivia McEwan, Anish Kapoor Is a One-Trick Illusionist
Anna Lee, Artists and Illustrators Throw Ed Sheeran for a Loop
Hakim Bishara, Visions of Johanna Unzueta
Rhea Nayyar, Visiting the Bayeux Tapestry? Put Your Camera Away
From the Editors, What Counterpublic Triennial Brings to St. Louis
The New York Times
Jason Farago, Peter Max Franchised the Cosmic ’60s Into Commercial Success, Without the Museum
Will Heinrich, The Wind of Creation Blows Across the Met’s Facade
Reggie Ugwu, Gordon Parks as His Subjects Knew Him
Observer
Jordan Riefe, The Nasher’s New Survey Treats Protest as an American Tradition
Elisa Carollo, Houston’s Insiders Say the City’s Cultural Scene Remains One of the Art World’s Best-Kept Secrets
Simon Coates, A Decade In, London’s Somerset House Studios Is Still Refining Its Model of Artist Support
Dan Duray, Jimmy Chin On Finding Beauty in Landscapes That Kill
Urgent Matter
Adam Schrader, Inside New York’s Affordable Art Fair, from Persian miniatures to Mylar
Adam Schrader, Craft travel founder says middlemen leave artisans a fraction of each sale
Vanity Fair
Madison Reid, Patti Smith and Photographer Lynn Davis on Their Enduring Friendship With Robert Mapplethorpe
Whitehot
Ken Krantz, Tim Kent: Sojourn at Hollis Taggart
Kathleen Cullen, Displaced: Ellen K. Levy at 68 Prince Street Gallery, Kingston,NY
Margaret Honor Rand, Emma Beatrez knows what you did last summer… and she painted it too
Thalia Vrachopoulos, Dae Hak Oh’s Gravity of Flux
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