The Art Newspaper Weekly

Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the proclamation of King Charles III, Ben Luke speaks to the former Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, Desmond Shawe-Taylor. They discuss the Royal Collection, the late Queen’s taste in art, the new King’s commitment to art education, and how the modern era compares to the past in terms of Royal patronage of visual art. As lights in museums and on monuments are turned off across Europe, UK institutions are facing soaring energy bills that could prove an existential threat. Lisa Ollerhead, director of the Association of Independent Museums, discusses how they can respond. And this episode’s Work of the Week is The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli—the Swiss-born artist’s most famous work. Two versions of the painting are in Fuseli: the Realm of Dreams and the Fantastic, a new show at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris.Association of Independent Museums: aim-museums.co.ukFuseli: the Realm of Dreams and the Fantastic, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, until 23 January 2023

This week: is art censorship on the rise? The Art Newspaper’s chief contributing editor, Gareth Harris, joins Ben Luke to discuss his new book, Censored Art Today. We look at the different ways in which freedom of expression is being curbed across the globe and at the debates around contested history and cancel culture. This episode’s Work of the Week is Diane Arbus’s Puerto Rican woman with a beauty mark, N.Y.C., 1965, one of the 90 images that feature in Diane Arbus: Photographs, 1956-1971, which opens at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada, on 15 September. Sophie Hackett, the exhibition’s curator, discusses Arbus’s remarkable eye and technical brilliance. As the Guggenheim Bilbao celebrates its 25th anniversary, Thomas Krens, the director and chief artistic officer of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation from 1988 to 2008, reflects on the genesis and development of a museum that had a dramatic impact on contemporary art and museums’ role in the cultural regeneration of cities across the world. G

Ben Luke talks to Alexander Kellner, the director of the National Museum of Brazil, about how he plans to mark Brazil’s bicentennial and to restore the museum in the wake of the devastating 2018 fire, which destroyed most of the building and millions of objects. The Art Newspaper’s London correspondent Martin Bailey tells us about the National Portrait Gallery’s ambition to acquire the £50m Portrait of Omai (1776), arguably the greatest work by the 18th-century British artist Joshua Reynolds—the latest installment in a long-running saga relating to the painting. And this episode’s Work of the Week is City, the land artist Michael Heizer’s magnum opus in the Nevada desert, which is complete and open to the public after more than 50 years. Our editor in the Americas, Ben Sutton, discusses this monumental piece with Kara Vander Weg, a member of the board of the Triple Aught Foundation, which manages the work. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

On 29 June, Frieze announced the details of the first edition of its art fair in Seoul, South Korea. So for this last episode of the current season, we’re exploring the art scene and market in the Korean capital. Ben Luke talks to the art historian and curator Jiyoon Lee about contemporary art in Seoul and beyond, and the origins of the current art scene in 1990s globalisation. The Art Newspaper’s associate editor, Kabir Jhala, speaks to two gallerists—Joorhee Kwon, deputy director at the Kukje Gallery and Emma Son, senior director at Lehmann Maupin, about the growing market and collector base, and the effect Frieze may have on the existing scene. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Dahye Jeong’s A Time of Sincerity, a basket made with horsehair that this week won the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize. Kabir talks to the creative director at the fashion brand Loewe, Jonathan Anderson, about Jeong’s piece.Frieze Seoul, COEX, Seoul, 2-5 September.The Space Between: The Modern in Korean Art, Los Angeles County Mus

This week: our associate editor, Kabir Jhala, and editor-at-large, Jane Morris, have been in Kassel, Germany, to see Documenta, the quinquennial international art exhibition. They review the show and respond to the escalation of a long-running row over antisemitism and broader racism, which has resulted in a work being removed from the exhibition. Virginia Rutledge, an art historian and lawyer, discusses the dispute over Andy Warhol’s appropriation of a photograph by Lynn Goldsmith of the pop icon Prince. The case will be heard in the US Supreme Court this autumn and has potentially huge implications for artistic freedom. And this episode’s Work of the Week is An Outpost of Progress (1992), a drawing by the late Spanish artist Juan Muñoz, inspired by Joseph Conrad’s short story of the same name.Documenta 15, Kassel, Germany, until 25 September.Juan Muñoz: Drawings 1982-2000, Centro Botín, Santander, Spain, 25 June-16 October. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week: why is Tate rejecting an archive of material relating to Francis Bacon, 18 years after acquiring it? Our London correspondent Martin Bailey tells us about his recent scoop that Tate is returning a thousand documents and sketches said to have come from the studio of Francis Bacon to Barry Joule, a close friend of the artist, who donated them to Tate in 2004. We then discuss the material with Martin Harrison, the pre-eminent Bacon scholar and editor of the catalogue raisonné of Francis Bacon’s work published in 2016, and to Sophie Pretorius, the archivist at the Estate of Francis Bacon, who went through the Barry Joule archive item by item. Victoria Munro, the director of the Alice Austen House Museum in New York, discusses this still too-little-known photographer, and her documentation of immigration to the United States and the lives of queer women in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Weißes Bild (1994), a painting by the late Luxembourg-born artist Michel Ma

We talk to the writer and critic Amy Castor about what effect the tumbling crypto markets might have on the until-now booming world of non-fungible tokens or NFTs. As Norway’s vast new National Museum opens, we speak to its director Karin Hindsbo. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Folding Screen with Indian Wedding, Mitote, and Flying Pole, made in Mexico in the late 17th century. It is one of the major pieces in a new show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, called Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. Ilona Katzew, the curator of the exhibition, talks in depth about the meanings and purpose of the work.You can read Amy Castor’s thoughts on crypto and NFTs at amycastor.com.The National Museum in Oslo opens on 11 June.Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 12 June-30 October. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Picasso and the Old Masters: as shows pairing the Spaniard with Ingres and El Greco open in London and Basel respectively, Ben Luke talks to Christopher Riopelle (curator of Picasso Ingres: Face to Face at the National Gallery) and Carmen Giménez (curator of Picasso-El Greco at the Kunstmuseum in Basel) about the profound influence of historic artists on Picasso’s rupturing of tradition. In this episode’s Work of the Week, The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent, Louisa Buck, talks to Chris Levine, the creator of Lightness of Being, one of the best known recent portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, as the British monarch celebrates 70 years on the throne. And as the Polish government replaces yet another museum director, what can be done about political interference in museum governance? Ben talks to Goranka Horjan, director of Intercom, the International Committee for Museum Management, and Bart De Baere, chair of the Museum Watch programme at the International Committee for Museums and Coll

This week: are stolen Cambodian statues hidden in the world’s great public collections? We discuss Cambodia’s looted heritage with Celia Hatton, Asia Pacific editor and presenter at the BBC World Service, whose documentary for BBC TV and radio Cambodia: Returning the Gods exposes the connections between looters, smugglers and, allegedly, some of the world’s most famous encyclopaedic museums. Plus, the dark truth behind the art and antiques assembled by the Marcos family in the Philippines as they return to power. We talk to the Filipino artist Pio Abad—who’s made art about Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and their collections for more than a decade—about Bongbong Marcos’s presidential election victory in the Philippines and what that means for the country and the art and antiquities seized by its government after the Marcoses were deposed in the 1980s. And in this episode’s Work of the Week, we discuss a sculpture by Ruth Asawa—Untitled (S.266, Hanging Seven-Lobed, Multi-Layered Interlocking Continuous Form withi

This week, as Frieze New York takes place at The Shed in Hudson Yards, and we come to the end of two weeks of huge auction sales, we talk to The Art Newspaper’s editor in the Americas, Ben Sutton, about the New York market. Nicholas Fox Weber, the executive director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, tells us about Bët-bi, a new museum the foundation hopes to open in Senegal in 2025, with a building designed by Mariam Issoufou Kamara, the Niger-based architect. And in this episode’s Work of the Week, Annabel Gallop, one of the co-curators of Gold, a new exhibition at the British Library in London, discusses a shimmering golden farman, or decree, from Shah ’Alam II, issued to a British woman, Sophia Plowden, in India in 1789.Frieze New York, The Shed, New York, until 22 May.Bët-bi, near Kaolack, Senegal, opens in 2025, www.betbi.org, www.ateliermasomi.com.Gold is at the British Library in London until 2 October. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week: is heritage in Ukraine being attacked and looted, and what can be done to protect it? Ben Luke talks to The Art Newspaper’s museums and heritage editor, Tom Seymour, who has been to the Ukrainian-Polish border with the International Council of Museums (ICOM), to witness museum materials being sent into Ukraine to help institutions there. Then, Tom talks to Sophie Delepierre, the head of heritage protection at ICOM, about the organisation’s efforts in Ukraine and elsewhere. As a major exhibition of the work of Paul Cezanne opens at The Art Institute of Chicago, ahead of its journey to Tate Modern later in the year, Ben talks to Gloria Groom and Caitlin Haskell, the curators of the Chicago exhibition. And for this episode’s Work of the Week, our acting digital editor, Aimee Dawson, asks Oliver Lanzenberg, the grandson of the artist Nicola L., about his grandmother’s work Gold Femme Commode (1969/1993). The piece is part of a show at Alison Jacques, one of a number of exhibitions opening to coincide w

This week, Philip Guston Now is unveiled at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston after its controversial postponement in 2020; Ben Luke talks to Kate Nesin and Megan Bernard, two of the four curators on the team assembled by the museum to revise the exhibition, which was postponed by four museums in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. We discuss how the show and its interpretation have changed in the last two years. As Queer Britain, the UK’s first national LGBTQ+ museum opens its doors, Gareth Harris, chief contributing editor at The Art Newspaper, speaks to Matthew Storey, the curator of the museum’s inaugural exhibition, Welcome to Queer Britain. And in this episode’s Work of the Week, our acting digital editor, Aimee Dawson, talks to Candida Lodovica de Angelis Corvi, global director at the Colnaghi gallery, about a rediscovered work by the 17th-century artist Caterina Angela Pierozzi, on display at Colnaghi in London.Philip Guston Now, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, until 11 September; Museum of Fine Arts, Hou

This week, now that the pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron has defeated the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election, we speak to Anaël Pigeat, editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper France, about the Macron government’s cultural record so far and what we can expect from his second term. Tate Britain has opened an exhibition of work by the late 19th- and early 20th-century British painter Walter Sickert; we take a tour of the show with one of its curators, Thomas Kennedy. And in this episode’s Work of the Week, The Art Newspaper’s associate editor, Tom Seymour, talks to Dan Leers of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, US, about A workman lifts a drum from a boiling lye solution, March 1944, a photograph in the museum’s new exhibition, Gordon Parks in Pittsburgh, 1944/1946.Walter Sickert, Tate Britain, London, until 18 September; Petit Palais, Paris, 14 October-29 January 2023.Gordon Parks in Pittsburgh, 1944/1946, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 30 April-7 August.

A Venice Biennale special: we give you a flavour of the 59th edition of the Biennale which, as ever, brings a deluge of contemporary art to the historic Italian city. We talk to four artists in the national pavilions – Francis Alÿs in the Belgian pavilion, Sonia Boyce in the British pavilion, Shubigi Rao in the Singapore pavilion and Na Chainkua Reindorf in the Ghana pavilion – about their presentations and how, if at all, they relate to the idea of nationhood. Louisa Buck and Jane Morris join host Ben Luke to review the main exhibition, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani, and pick their highlights of the Biennale so far. And while most visitors to Venice this week are immersed in contemporary art, for this episode’s Work of the Week, we take a look at a masterpiece that remains exactly where it was intended to hang. The art historian Ben Street joins Ben Luke in San Giovanni Crisostomo, a church near Venice’s Rialto bridge, to look at Saints Christopher, Jerome and Louis of Toulouse, a late paint

This week: Tom Seymour talks to the photographer Edward Burtynsky as he is recognised for his Outstanding Contribution to his medium in the Sony World Photography Awards. He discusses the Russian invasion and his Ukrainian heritage. In this episode’s Work of the Week, we look at Winslow Homer’s most famous work, The Gulf Stream (1899, reworked by 1906), which is at the heart of a new show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Sylvia Yount and Stephanie Herdrich, the curators of the exhibition, discuss the making, reception and legacy of the painting. And we talk to Lisa Movius about the decision by the Nord regional government in France to suspend plans for the exhibition Matisse by Matisse—a collaboration between Musée Matisse le Cateau-Cambrésis and the private Beijing museum UCCA—over China’s supposedly neutral position on Russia’s invasion. Will other Western authorities or arts organisations follow suit?Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition 2022, Somerset House, London, until 2 May. Edward Bu

This week: Quiet as It’s Kept, the 80th edition of the Whitney Biennial, is now open to the public at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The Art Newspaper’s associate editor Tom Seymour, Americas editor Ben Sutton and staff reporter Gabriella Angeletti gather to discuss it. As the latest incarnation of the show Afro-Atlantic Histories is unveiled at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, we speak to its curator, Kanitra Fletcher, about the gallery’s approach to this complex subject. And the National Gallery in London’s long-planned Raphael blockbuster, postponed due to the pandemic, is finally open, so for this episode’s Work of the Week, we speak to Tom Henry, one of the curators of the show, about the Self-Portrait with Giulio Romano (1519-20), one of the Renaissance master’s final paintings.Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, until 5 September.Afro-Atlantic Histories, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 10 April-17 July.Raphael, National Galler

This week: the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2022 is out—is the market’s recovery as good as it sounds? We talk to Melanie Gerlis, art market columnist for The Art Newspaper and the Financial Times, about the sixth edition of the market report, what the headline figures tell us and what we can read between the lines. As the exhibition Hideouts: The Architecture of Survival, opens at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw—focusing on the spaces in Poland and Ukraine used by Holocaust survivors to escape Nazi persecution—we talk to the artist behind it, Natalia Romik. Though long planned, the show has gained a troubling topicality as the Russian invasion and destruction of Ukraine continues. And in this episode’s Work of the Week, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of Piet Mondrian’s birth, we discuss his painting Victory Boogie Woogie (1942-44). Caro Verbeek, the co-curator of Mondrian Moves, an exhibition opening this week at the Kunstmuseum den Haag in the Hague, the Netherlands, tells

We talk to Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, about the new plans for the museum’s wing of modern and contemporary art, including the appointment of the architect Frida Escobedo in place of David Chipperfield. As The Art Newspaper is about to publish its annual museum attendance survey, showing that visitors are beginning slowly to return to museums after the height of the pandemic, we ask Hollein how the vision for the museum has changed following the events of the past two years. Plus, Aimee Dawson talks to the curator Sam Bardaouil about the exhibition Beirut and the Golden Sixties: A Manifesto of Fragility at the Gropius Bau in Berlin. And in this episode’s Work of the Week, as the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, opens a major Meret Oppenheim survey, the show’s curator Natalie Dupêcher discusses Oppenheim’s Surrealist object Ma gouvernante – My Nurse – Mein Kindermädchen (1936): a pair of white heels on a silver platter, trussed like a chicken.The Art Newspaper’s visitor attendan

Donatello in Florence, the Biennale of Sydney and Eduardo Navarro’s seed installationThis week, as the Palazzo Strozzi and Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence present a survey of Donatello, one of the greatest of all Italian Renaissance masters, we talk to Arturo Galansino, the Strozzi’s Director General, and Paola D’Agostino, Director of the Bargello museum, about the show. The Biennale of Sydney in Australia has just opened, with the theme of rīvus, meaning stream in Latin. José Roca, the Biennale’s artistic director, and Alessandro Pelizzon, co-founder of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, discuss the Biennale’s concept, bringing rivers and other “aqueous beings”, as Roca and his curatorial colleagues call them, into dialogue with artists, architects, designers, scientists, and communities. What does it mean if you grant rivers and other natural forms rights? And this episode’s Work of the Week also explores nature, ecology and the relationship between humans and natural phenomena. We speak

This week: as more than two million refugees leave war-torn Ukraine, what can the arts do? Counterpoints Arts is a charity that works with refugee artists and creates programmes in a range of artforms on the subject of migration and displacement in the UK and beyond. Their mission is underpinned by a belief that arts can inspire social change and enhance the inclusion and cultural integration of refugees and migrants. We talk to a producer at Counterpoints Arts, Tom Green. The Art Newspaper’s deputy digital editor Aimee Dawson is at the Art Dubai fair, and talks about its new digital section, focusing on NFTs, virtual reality and more, with the artist Gretchen Andrew and Anna Seaman, a curator at Morrow Collective, an NFT curatorial platform that is participating in the fair. And in this episode’s Work of the Week, as Summer, an exhibition dedicated to the work of the late Cuban-American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres, opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto, its curator Rui Mateus Amaral discus