Welcome to Art Spell, a daily, comprehensive roundup of art news and reviews for the visual arts community. Today’s Editor’s Pick is 25 Global Art Openings Worth Making an Excursion For by Jason Farago for The New York Times. Farago highlights the major exhibitions and new cultural institutions defining the fall 2026 arts season.
The Art Newspaper
Elena Goukassian, Smithsonian leader Lonnie G. Bunch to retire
Dale Berning Sawa, How Trump’s signature bill could make arts education in the US even more expensive
Douglas Markowitz, ‘It was a calling’: 25 years after the 11 September attacks, Joel Meyerowitz reflects on his photos of Ground Zero
Gareth Harris, Three UK arts organisations receive new £100,000 Freelands Foundation education award
Artforum
From the Editors, Lucien Smith, Whose Meteoric Rise Presaged a Diverse Second Act, Dies at 37
From the Editors, Lonnie G. Bunch III Resigns as Secretary of the Smithsonian
From the Editors, Japan Art Association Announces 2026 Praemium Imperiale Laureates
From the Editors, Beyoncé Gives a $2 Million Birthday Gift to the Studio Museum
Artnet
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Worth the Wait! The Bayeux Tapestry’s British Museum Debut Is a Hard-Won Triumph
Min Chen, Futura and Lego Are Building Something Together—and Other Art World Matters
Vittoria Benzine, $2M Cache of Rare Oasis Recordings Goes to Auction, Despite Band’s Concerns
Gabi Vida- Irizarry, Lucien Smith, Inventive Painter and Downtown Art-World Fixture, Dies at 37
Vittoria Benzine, Smithsonian Chief Lonnie Bunch III Steps Down as White House Targets the Institution
ARTnews
Daniel Cassady, Eric Firestone to Open Fifth Gallery in West Palm Beach
Julie Brener Davich, Kasseem Dean and Alicia Keys Team Up with Bonhams for Initiative That Gives Artists a Cut of Secondary-Market Sales
Hikmat Mohammed, Christie’s to Auction Peter Simon’s $172 M. Art Collection, Led by Bacon, Mondrian, Warhol Works
Hikmat Mohammed, Planned SANAA Architect Project in Hungary to Be Turned Into Public Parkland
Sarah Belmont, Eight Must-See Islands for Art Lovers
Maximilíano Durón, Philippe Parreno’s ‘Iceman’ Sculpture Will Melt Away at Independent 20th Century
Anne Doran, Well-Preserved Tomb of Ancient Egyptian Official Found Near Saqqara
Leigh Anne Miller, Production Mold for Ancient Female Figurine Discovered in Jerusalem
Alex Greenberger, Clive Davis’s Warhol, Hockney Paintings Head to Christie’s During Marquee New York Sales
Brian Boucher, Five Standouts at Portland’s Converge 45 Triennial, From a Gourd Frieze to a Performance That Played with Fire
Tessa Solomon, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch to Retire as Trump Targets Museum Consortium
Brian Boucher, Lucien Smith, Onetime Market Darling Who Turned His Focus To Helping Emerging Artists, Has Died at 37
Francesca Aton, Oxford University Museum to Repatriate 39 Colonial-Era Human Remains
William D. Cohan, The Man Who Bought The Scream: Collector Leon Black’s Reckoning Is Far from Over
Alex Greenberger, Former Chairman of Kennedy Center Buys Disassembled Joel Shapiro Sculpture
ArtReview
Martin Herbert, What We Don’t Know About Jasper Johns
From the Editors, The 10 Exhibitions to See in September 2026
Pia Singh, Chicago’s ‘Slacker’ Artists
FrOom the Editors, Smithsonian head quits among sustained Trump pressure
From the Editors, Lucien Smith, artist supporting artists, 1989–2026
From the Editors, Andy Goldsworthy and Jenny Holzer among Praemium Imperiale winners
The Atlantic
Sebastian Smee, The Real Legacy of Lonnie Bunch
Tom Healy, This Was a Good Sculpture
Kelsey Ables and Janay Kingsberry, Why Lonnie Bunch Is Leaving the Smithsonian
The Brooklyn Rail
Annabel Keenan, Miles Greenberg
Susan Harris, Giacometti in the Temple of Dendur
Osman Can Yerebakan, Thomas Houseago: Sculptures
David Whelan, Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50
Marjorie Welish, Pope.L: Certainly An Act: Works on Paper by Pope.L
Cultured
Julie Belcove, At 76, Artist Carroll Dunham Is Starting Over
Sophie Lee and Julia Halperin, Lucien Smith, Downtown Artist Who Funneled Market Success Into Community Projects, Dies at 37
Isabella Bernstein, The 15 Must-See Solo Gallery Shows in New York This Month
Financial Times
Jill Krasny, The hot curls of Eunnam Hong
Melanie Gerlis, Monsoon founder Peter Simon on selling his vast art collection
The Guardian
Henry Ward, Why we’re giving £100,000 apiece to a horse box gallery, high-street drop-in and Midlands museum
Philip Oltermann, Reclaiming the streets: the architects clawing back Europe’s car-centric spaces
Jon Henley and Angelique Chrisafis, Artworks stolen from Renoir Museum on French Riviera in latest heist
Eddy Frankel, A constipated baby and a kid that looks like Boris Johnson: why would anyone bother stealing a Renoir?
Hyperallergic
From the Editors, Lonnie G. Bunch Has Had Enough
Lakshmi Rivera Amin, A New Batch of Art-World Novels
Rhea Nayyar, An Art-Filled Fall in Upstate NY
Eileen G’Sell, For Sophie Lewis, Femininity Is Not the Enemy of Feminism
Robert Choe-Henderson, How Korean Paper Became War Collateral
Anna Lee, Trump-Ousted Kennedy Center Chairman Buys Removed Shapiro Sculpture
Phillip Pyle, Artist Lucien Smith, Fixture of NYC’s Downtown Scene, Dies at 37
John Yau, The Law & Order Writer Who Moonlights as an Artist
Valentina Di Liscia, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch Steps Down Amid Trump’s Attacks
Rhea Nayyar, Renoir Artworks Worth Millions Stolen in Five-Minute Heist in France
The New York Times
EDITOR’S PICK - Jason Farago, 25 Global Art Openings Worth Making an Excursion For: Our critic Jason Farago awaits Brancusi at MoMA, a K-pop icon’s collection in San Francisco, Sofia Coppola at the Château de Versailles — and new art centers in New York.
Robin Pogrebin and Graham Bowley, Smithsonian’s Secretary to Resign as Trump Tries to Rule the Institution
Celia McGee, The Young Women at the Heart of American Landscape Art
David Allen, A Paradise Where Music and Art Meet Postcard Mountain Views
Zachary Small, Graham Bowley and Robin Pogrebin, Departing Smithsonian Secretary Faced ‘Mounting Pressure Campaign’
Observer
Stephen Garrett, Lance Oppenheim On Venice’s Most Uncomfortable Premiere
Elisa Carollo, Intentionally Smaller and Slower, the 16th Gwangju Biennale Traces a Path of Change
John Scott Lewinski, Why the New York Art World Runs on the European Cultural Calendar
Scott Drevnig, Iris van Herpen Has No Flagship Store, No Diffusion Line and No Plans to Change
Puck
Ingrid Abramovitch, The Craft Merchants of Venice
Urgent Matter
Adam Schrader, Thieves steal four Renoir paintings from Cagnes-sur-Mer museum, two still missing
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