The Week in Art

The exhibition Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica began its life at the Art Institute of Chicago before travelling to Museu d’art contemporani de Barcelona (Macba) in Barcelona and now to the Barbican in London, in each case changing in relation to the particular circumstances of its location. One of the show’s curators is Elvira Dyangani Ose, the director of the Barcelona museum, and Ben Luke speaks to her about the show. Among the books shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction in the UK, which was awarded this week, is Daisy Fancourt’s Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health. Ben discusses her research and how it can be implemented. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red (1943), by Barbara Hepworth. It features in Hepworth in Colour, a new exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London, and The Art Newspaper’s digital editor, Alexander Morrison, speaks to the show’s curator, Alexandra Gerstein, about the work.Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica, Barbican Art Gallery, until 6 September. To find out more about the wider events across the Barbican visit the centre’s website.Daisy Fancourt: Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health, US: Celadon Books, $28.99; UK: Cornerstone Press, £22.Hepworth in Colour, Courtauld Gallery, London, 12 June-6 September Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. has faced unprecedented scrutiny and government interference since President Trump came to power. Now, its long cherished plans for a Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum on the National Mall in D.C. have been dealt a blow because the US House of Representatives has struck down a bill to build the museum. Ben Luke talks to Elena Goukassian, The Art Newspaper’s senior editor of museums and heritage in New York, about the partisan rift that led to failure of the bill, as well as other developments relating to the Smithsonian. As part of London Gallery Weekend, which begins on 5 June, the British artist Oliver Beer will show new paintings and related sound and video works in an exhibition, The Sky in the Cave, at Thaddaeus Ropac. The show relates to Beer’s opus Resonance Project: The Cave, in which he brought eight singers into a prehistoric painted cave in the Dordogne in France to respond to its particular acoustic frequencies. Among them was the singer songwriter Rufus Wainwright, and Ben speaks to Oliver and Rufus about their collaboration. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Painting with Two Balls by Jasper Johns. It is part of a new retrospective of the American artist’s work at the Guggenheim Bilbao, Night Driver. Ben talks to the exhibition’s curator, Enrique Juncosa.Oliver Beer: The Sky in the Cave, Thaddaeus Ropac, London, 5 June—31 July. Oliver and Rufus will be in conversation at the gallery on Friday 5 June, 12.00;Visit rufuswainwright.comJasper Johns: Night Driver, Guggenheim Bilbao, 29 May-12 October. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The latest edition of Frieze New York is open now and we hear all about this year’s fair from The Art Newspaper’s editor-in-chief in the Americas, Ben Sutton, and our art market editor, Kabir Jhala. Cupid Complaining to Venus (1526-27), a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder in the National Gallery in London has long been known to have a complicated provenance and was once in the possession of Adolf Hitler. In The Art Newspaper’s May print edition, a photograph of the work in Hitler’s Munich apartment is reproduced for the first time in an English-language publication. Ben Luke talks to Martin Bailey, our special correspondent in London, who has been following this story since the 1990s, about the latest news. And this episode’s Work of the Week is the Glamour Posse series from the early 1990s by the British photographer Ajamu X. The work features in Gender Stories, a UK touring exhibition that this week opens at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and Ben speaks to the head of the gallery, Charlotte Keenan.Frieze New York continues until Sunday, 17 May, Esther continues until 16 May and Tefaf is on until 19 May.Gender Stories, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 16 May-31 August. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The first Art Basel Qatar art fair is now open in Qatar’s capital, Doha, and The Art Newspaper’s art market editor, Kabir Jhala, joins Ben Luke to discuss its impact, as well as reflecting on the wider artistic outlook in Qatar and the Middle East. The author of a new catalogue raisonné of the work of Albrecht Dürer argues that a painting of the artist’s father in the National Gallery in London, long thought to be a copy after Dürer’s original, is in fact an autograph work. Our special correspondent in London, Martin Bailey, tells us about the arguments for and against its authenticity. And this episode’s Work of the Week is actually a pair of works. That is because there is a compelling double header opening at the Albertinum in Dresden this weekend, the exhibition Paula Modersohn-Becker and Edvard Munch: The Big Questions of Life. The exhibition’s co-curator Andreas Dehmer discusses Selbstbildnis mit Hand am Kinn or Self-Portrait with Hand on Chin (1906) by Modersohn-Becker and Vampir or Vampire (1895) by Munch with our digital editor, Alexander Morrison.Art Basel Qatar continues until Saturday, 7 February.Christof Metzger, Albrecht Dürer: The Complete Paintings. Selected Drawings and Prints, Taschen, £175 (hb)Paula Modersohn-Becker and Edvard Munch: The Big Questions of Life, Albertinum, Dresden, 8 February-31 May.To buy The Art Newspaper’s guidebook The Year Ahead 2026, an authoritative look at the year’s unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events, visit theartnewspapershop.com. £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. this week opens Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art, a new exhibition focusing on LGBTQ+ artists from across Africa and its diaspora. Ben Luke talks to its co-curator, Kevin Dumouchelle, about the exhibition and forthcoming book. We explore the cultural effects of the protests in Iran that began at the end of last year, and the brutal crackdown that followed, with Sarvy Garenpayeh, one of The Art Newspaper’s reporters on the Middle East. Sarvy has attempted to contact art workers after the Iranian government cut off the internet two weeks ago. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Louise Nevelson’s Moon Garden Plus One (1958), a landmark installation first staged in New York that is being reprised, at least in part, in a new survey of the American sculptor’s work at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in Metz, France. We speak to the curator of the exhibition, Anne Horvath.Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art, National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., 23 January–23 August. The related book, published by Smithsonian Books, will be available later this year.The London gallery Ab-Anbar, which was founded in Tehran in 2014, has announced that it has extended its solo exhibition of the Iranian artist Amin Bagheri’s work until 22 February. The gallery has been hosting what it describes as “moments of togetherness for its London community: a space to gather, talk, and be together”, in solidarity with the people of Iran.Louise Nevelson: Mrs. N’s Palace, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France, 24 January-31 AugustTo buy The Art Newspaper’s guidebook The Year Ahead 2026, an authoritative look at the year’s unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events, visit theartnewspapershop.com. £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It is the first episode of 2026. So we look ahead at the next 12 months with a guide to big museum openings, biennials and exhibitions. Ben Luke is joined by Jane Morris, editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper and Cultureshock, and Gareth Harris, chief contributing editor at The Art Newspaper, to discuss the key art fairs, major museum building projects and the top biennials of the year, and we pick our exhibition highlights.All of the events discussed and many more are featured in The Art Newspaper’s guidebook The Year Ahead 2026, an authoritative look at the year’s unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events. Visit theartnewspapershop.com. £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency.Events discussed:ART FAIRS: Art Basel Qatar, Doha, Qatar, 5-7 Feb; Frieze Abu Dhabi, 17-22 Nov; MUSEUM OPENINGS: Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, date tbc; V&A East, opens 18 Apr; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma), opens Apr; Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, opens 22 Sep; Dataland, Los Angeles, opens spring; New Museum, New York, date tbc. BIENNIALS: Venice Biennale, In Minor Keys, 9 May-22 Nov; Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince: Helter Skelter, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 9 May-22 Nov; Marina Abramović: Transforming Energy, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, 6 May-19 Oct; Whitney Biennial, opens 8 Mar; Greater New York 2026, MoMA PS1, 16 Apr-17 Aug; EXHIBITIONS: Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture, Frick Collection, 12 Feb-11 May; Raphael: Sublime Poetry, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 29 Mar-28 Jun; Zurbarán, National Gallery, London, 2 May-23 Aug; Michaelina Wautier, Royal Academy of Arts, 27 Mar-21 Jun; James McNeill Whistler, Tate Britain, 21 May-27 Sep, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 16 Oct-10 Jan 2027; Seurat and the Sea, Courtauld Gallery, ​​13 Feb-17 May; Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 25 Apr-19 Oct; Royal Academy, London, 21 Nov-14 Mar 2027, Cezanne, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, 25 Jan-25 May; Leonor Fini, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 22 Oct-28 Feb 2027; Hilma af Klint, Grand Palais, 6 May-30 Aug, Matisse 1941-1954, Grand Palais, Paris, 24 Mar-26 Jul; Chez Matisse: The Legacy of a New Painting, Caixa Forum, Barcelona, 27 Mar-16 Aug; Fratino and Matisse: To See This Light Again, Baltimore Museum of Art, 11 Mar-6 Sep; Matisse’s Femme au Chapeau: A Modern Scandal, SFMOMA, San Francisco, 16 May-7 Sep; Marcel Duchamp, MoMA, New York, 12 Apr-22 Aug; Mary Cassatt: An American in Paris, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 14 Feb-30 Aug; Mary Cassatt: After Impressionism, Art Institute of Chicago, 6 Sep-3 Jan 2027; Modern Iran and the Avant-Gardes, 1948-78, Vancouver Art Gallery, 11 Dec-2 May 2027; Spectrosynthesis Seoul, Art Sonje Center, Seoul, 20 Mar-28 Jun; Carol Bove, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 5 Mar-2 Aug; New Humans: Memories of the Future, New Museum, New York, opens early 2026; Hurvin Anderson, Tate Britain, 26 Mar-23 Aug; Tracey Emin: A Second Life, 26 Feb-31 Aug; Ana Mendieta, Tate Modern, London, 9 Jul-10 Jan 2027. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Frank Gehry, the architect behind the Guggenheim Bilbao, Geffen Contemporary at MoCA, Los Angeles, and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, among other museums and art spaces, died last Friday at his home in Santa Monica, California. He was 96. Ben Luke discusses his long engagement with art, artists and museums with Paul Goldberger, the architecture critic and Gehry’s biographer. Serpentine and the US-based FLAG Art Foundation last week announced the creation of a prize for artists that will see £1 million being awarded over 10 years to five artists, so £200,000 to each recipient—the largest contemporary art prize in the UK given to a single artist. Ben speaks to Glenn Fuhrman, founder of The FLAG Art Foundation, and Jonathan Rider, its director, about the prize. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Sunlight (1978) by Joan Semmel. The painting features in a new exhibition opening at the Jewish Museum in New York this week, and we speak to the show’s curator, Rebecca Shaykin.Paul Goldberger is the author of Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, published in 2015 by Knopf, and Why Architecture Matters, published in 2009 by Yale University Press.Joan Semmel: In the Flesh, Jewish Museum, New York, 12 December-31 May 2026 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.