Welcome to Art Spell, a daily, comprehensive roundup of art news and reviews for the visual arts community. Today’s Editor’s Pick is What to Do With Europe’s ‘Zombie Churches’? These Artists Have Some Ideas by Nina Siegal for The New York Times. As thousands of churches in Europe face abandonment, artists and communities are exploring ways to transform them into cultural and communal spaces.
Art in America
Barry Schwabsky, How Jutta Koether Made A Color Her Signature Style
The Art Newspaper
Catherine Hickley and Martin Bailey, Greece rejects Parthenon marbles loan request from Frankfurt due to British Museum involvement, reports say
Gareth Harris, Two Renoir paintings worth €9m stolen from Renoir Museum in South of France
Richard Unwin, Hungary’s new government scraps National Gallery plans
Mercedes Ezquiaga, Argentina court orders return of Nazi-looted Old Master portrait to Jewish dealer’s heir
Gareth Harris, England’s Pitt Rivers Museum announces its largest repatriation of human remains
Anna Brady, Museum acquisitions round-up: an unsettling French mask and a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I
From the Editors, Come to the British Library’s Agatha Christie show—if you dare
Artforum
George Baker, REGRESSIONS AND REVELATIONS
Artnet
Gabi Vidal-Irizarry, ‘The Biggest Art Heist of the 21st Century,’ According to Libbie Mugrabi. Plus, a Seoul Dispatch!
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Did Renoir Actually Suck at Painting?
Vittoria Benzine, $60 Million Modernist Trove Led by Rare Signacs Heads to Auction
Vittoria Benzine, Reggie Burrows Hodges Takes Over L.A. With Three-Venue Homecoming
Verity Babbs, Route 66 at 100: How Artists Have Captured the Mythical Highway
Andrew Russeth, As China Exits the Gwangju Biennale, Taiwan Plows Ahead
Vittoria Benzine, A Tudor Masterpiece Goes Under the Microscope—and Anyone Can Watch
Vittoria Benzine, Philadelphia Rallies to Save Its Dino Museum—and Other Art World Matters
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Christie’s and Bonhams Hike Buyer’s Fees—and More Industry Intel
Andrew Russeth, Beyoncé Gives $2M to Studio Museum in Harlem—and Other Art World Matters
Sonia Manalili and Margaret Carrigan, What to Watch in the Market This Fall
ARTnews
Devorah Lauter, Eiffel Tower Workers Strike in Outrage After Female Staffers Ordered to Leave Their Posts, Replaced by Men
Hikmat Mohammed, Loewe’s Fall 2026 Collection Inspired by Cosima Von Bonin’s Sea Creatures Lands in Stores
Hikmat Mohammed and Maximilíano Durón, Four Paintings Stolen from France’s Renoir Museum in Predawn Raid
Devorah Lauter, Jenny Holzer and Andy Goldsworthy Win $95,000 Praemium Imperiale Award
Hikmat Mohammed, Chanel Culture Fund Partners with Dib Bangkok on Inaugural Chanel Gateway Commission
Hikmat Mohammed, Activist Group Labels Video Documenting Falling Ceiling Debris at the Kennedy Center ‘Propaganda’
Devorah Lauter, Geles Cabrera, Trailblazing Mexican Sculptor, Dies at 100
Hikmat Mohammed, St Paul’s Cathedral Faces Backlash After Partnering with Fabric, Iconic London Nightclub
Hikmat Mohammed, Issy Wood Picked as National Portrait Gallery’s Inaugural Artist for Contemporary Program
ArtReview
Katie Tobin, Gabriele Stötzer Turning the Trap Around
From the Editors, Andy Goldsworthy and Jenny Holzer among Praemium Imperiale winners
The Atlantic
Sebastian Smee, Misunderstanding Norman Rockwell
The Boston Globe
Angela Charlton, Thieves steal four Renoir paintings from French Riviera museum; two still missing
The Brooklyn Rail
William Corwin, Necessary Miracles: Rothko in Florence
Lee Ann Norman, Fade
Mark Van Proyen, Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory
Natalie Weis, Mona Hatoum: Over, under and in between
Lyle Rexer, Arnaldo Pomodoro: Una Vita
Financial Times
Christina Ohly Evans, Guggenheim director Miren Arzalluz’s guide to Bilbao
The Guardian
Angelique Chrisafis, Artworks stolen from Renoir Museum on French Riviera in latest heist
Veronica Esposito, Skyscrapers and smokestacks: the grittier side of Georgia O’Keeffe
Daniel Culpan, Can breath be art? Liz Larner on sculpting with hair, lashes, leather – and international group exhalation
Hyperallergic
Valentina Di Liscia, 15 US Museum Shows We Can’t Wait For
Rhea Nayyar, Anna Lee, and Phillip Pyle, 15 Museum Exhibitions to See Across the US This Fall
Aaron Short, Preserving Ernie Barnes’s Legacy in Paint Tubes
Rana Alsoufi, The Artist Residency That Never Was
Khatchig Mouradian, The Pine Trees That Would Not Leave Me
Amalia Uribe Guardiola, In Queens, Immigrant Women Sew a Truer Atlas
Lakshmi Rivera Amin, Art Books We’re Reading This Fall
The New York Times
Holland Cotter, Art’s New Season: Retrospectives and Resistance
Jason Farago, 25 Global Art Openings Worth Making an Excursion For
EDITOR’S PICK - Nina Siegal, What to Do With Europe’s ‘Zombie Churches’? These Artists Have Some Ideas.: As the continent’s ties to Christianity fade, churches are being abandoned. But some see a chance to transform them into communal spaces like care centers or venues for the arts.
Julia Jacobs, Ousted Kennedy Center Chairman Buys Dismantled ‘Blue’ Sculpture
Adam Nossiter, Jean-François Leroy, Champion of Photography at Its Rawest, Dies at 69
Michael Kimmelman, There Is Still a Void at Ground Zero. Here’s How We Fill It.
Julia Halperin, A Family History of Emigration and Exile, Told Through Objects
Stephen Treffinger, This San Francisco Artist’s Walls Have Boundary Issues
Sam Lubell, A Japanese Polymath Transforms a Modernist Icon
The New Yorker
Hilton Als, Willem de Kooning’s Excavations of Intimacy
Observer
Paco Barragán, Art Fairs Are Built for a Market That No Longer Exists
Elisa Carollo, Marian Goodman’s Multiples, Inc. Banners to Resurface at New York’s Independent 20th Century
J. Scott Orr, Yoshitomo Nara’s New York Story Can Be Found in its Punk Clubs
Sarah Moroz, Daisy Dixon’s “Depraved” Grapples With the Art of Problematic Artists
The Washington Post
Noemie Bisserbe, Thieves Raid Renoir Museum in Latest French Art Heist
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There is an interesting irony in the amount of information we now have about the art world. More access should make it easier to understand, yet the sheer volume can make judgment harder. Increasingly, the real value may be in thoughtful curation—not simply telling us what happened, but helping us understand what is actually worth paying attention to and why.
Urgent Matter put out some great stories this cycle too! You can check out a couple of them here:
https://www.urgentmatter.press/vancouver-art-gallery-faces-criticism-unaffiliated-charlie-kirk-memorial/
https://www.urgentmatter.press/nuclear-missile-makers-are-buying-naming-rights-at-the-smithsonian/