The Week in Art

This week: Adriano Pedrosa, the artistic director of the 60th Venice Biennale, on his exhibition, Foreigners Everywhere. As he announces the themes, concepts and the list of artists in the show, we speak to the Brazilian curator about his plans. Hugely popular immersive art experiences are popping up across the world from London to Las Vegas, Tokyo and Abu Dhabi, and we discuss this phenomenon and its implications for museums and galleries with Chris Michaels—an art and technology consultant and former director of digital, communications and technology at the National Gallery, London. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Forever), an installation first made in 2017 and now on view in the Serpentine South gallery in London, where Kruger’s career survey arrived this week after spells in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Serpentine Galleries’ artistic director, explores the installation.The 60th Venice Biennale: Foreigners Everywhere, Giardini and Arsenale, Venice, Italy, 20 April-24 November.Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You, Serpentine South, London, until 17 March.Offer: you can still buy The Art Newspaper’s magazine The Year Ahead 2024, an authoritative guide to the world’s must-see art exhibitions and museum openings—many of which were discussed on our podcast from 12 January. Get a print and digital subscription to The Art Newspaper at theartnewspaper.com before the 15th of this month to receive a copy of The Year Ahead with your next printed issue. Or you can buy the magazine on its own on the website for just £9.99 or $13.69. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: masters week in New York—can the market for historic works be revived? Scott Reyburn, a market reporter for The Art Newspaper, has for some time been exploring the decline in the trade for Old Master paintings. He looks ahead to the auctions in Masters Week in New York, which begin this weekend. In India on Monday, the prime minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a vast temple to the Hindu god Ram in the city of Ayodhya. The temple replaces a 16th-Century mosque that was destroyed by Hindu mobs in 1992, an event that provoked riots in which nearly 2,000 people died, most of them Muslim people. Our deputy art market editor and regular correspondent in India, Kabir Jhala, is in Mumbai, and joins us to discuss this pivotal issue in modern Indian history, what it means ahead of India’s general election in the spring, and whether it is affecting the Indian art market. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Madame déménage (1867), a political cartoon by the French artist Honoré Daumier that was deemed so provocative in its time that it was not published. The lithograph is part of an exhibition at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt that features 120 Daumier works from the Hellwig Collection. Hans-Jürgen Hellwig, the who is donating the collection to the Städel, joins us to discuss this incendiary image.Honoré Daumier: The Hellwig Collection, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, until 12 May.Offer: to get The Art Newspaper’s magazine The Year Ahead 2024, an authoritative guide to the world’s must-see art exhibitions and museum openings, get a print and digital subscription to The Art Newspaper at theartnewspaper.com before 15 February. Your copy of The Year Ahead will arrive with your next printed issue. You can buy the magazine on its own on the website for just £9.99 or $13.69. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the astonishing civil trial in Manhattan between a Russian oligarch and Sotheby’s. The Art Newspaper’s acting art market editor, Tim Schneider, witnessed the Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev’s testimony in the trial in New York in which he accuses Sotheby’s of aiding the Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier in an alleged fraud. It relates to the sale of major works of art, including the controversial Leonardo painting Salvator Mundi. Tim joins us to tell us about this extraordinary case. The second edition of Art SG art fair in Singapore has opened—with a 29% fall in the number of galleries. It takes place amid a wider festival, Singapore Art Week, and Lisa Movius, our reporter in Asia, tells us about the mood in Singapore and the wider art scene beyond Art SG. She also reflects on last weekend’s election in Taiwan. And our first Work of the Week of 2024 is the South African artist Zanele Muholi’s photograph ZaVa III, Paris (2013). The image is one of more than 100 works in Zanele Muholi: Eye Me, an exhibition that has just opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Shana Lopes, one of the curators of the exhibition, tells us more.Art SG, until Sunday; Singapore Art Week until 28 January, artweek.sgZanele Muholi: Eye Me, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, US, until 11 August. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first episode of 2024 we look ahead to the next 12 months. The Art Newspaper’s acting art market editor Tim Schneider peers into his crystal ball to tell us what we might expect from the coming 12 months in the art market. Then, Jane Morris, editor-at-large, Gareth Harris, chief contributing editor, and host Ben Luke select the biennials and exhibitions they are most looking forward to in 2024.Events discussed:60th Venice Biennale: Foreigners Everywhere, 20 April-24 November; Pierre Huyghe, Punta Della Dogana, Venice, 17 March-24 November; Julie Mehretu, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 17 March-6 January; Willem de Kooning, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, 16 April–15 September; Jean Cocteau, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 13 April-16 September; Whitney Biennial: Whitney Museum of American Art, opens 20 March; PST Art: Art & Science Collide, 14 September-16 February; Istanbul Biennial, 14 September-17 November; Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024, Saudi Arabia, 20 February-24 May; Desert X 2024 AlUla, Saudi Arabia, 9 February-30 April; Frick Collection, New York, reopening late 2024; Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza, Egypt, dates tbc; IMAGINE!: 100 Years of International Surrealism, The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, 21 February-21 July; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 4 September-6 January (travels to Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany, Fundación Mapfré, Madrid, Philadelphia Museum of Art, US); Paris 1874: Inventing impressionism, Musée d’Orsay, 26 March-14 July; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 8 September-19 January; Van Gogh, National Gallery, London, 14 September-19 January; Matthew Wong, Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 1 March-1 September; Caspar David Friedrich, Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, until 1 April; Caspar David Friedrich, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 19 April-4 August; Caspar David Friedrich, Albertinum and Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden, Germany, 24 August-5 January; Arte Povera, Bourse de Commerce, Paris, 9 October-24 March; Brancusi, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 27 March-1 July; Comics, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 29 May-4 November; Yoko Ono, Tate Modern, London, 15 February-1 September 2024; Angelica Kauffman, Royal Academy, London, 1 March-30 June; Women Artists in Britain, Tate Britain, London, 16 May-13 October; Judy Chicago, Serpentine North, London, 22 May-1 September; Vanessa Bell, Courtauld Gallery, London, 25 May-6 October; Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, US, until 21 January; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 17 March-28 July; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 25 October-2 March; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, dates tbc; Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican, London, 13 February-26 May 2024, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 14 September-5 January; The Harlem Renaissance, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 25 February-28 July; Siena: the Rise of Painting, 1300-50, Metropolitan Museum, 13 October-26 January; Museum of Modern Art, New York, shows: Joan Jonas, 17 March-6 July, LaToya Ruby Frazier, 12 May-7 September, Käthe Kollwitz, 31 March-20 July; Kollwitz, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, 20 March-9 June; Käthe Kollwitz, SMK-National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, 7 November-25 February; The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 11 February-27 May; Expressionists, Tate Modern, London, 25 April-20 October; Gabriele Münter: the Great Expressionist Woman Painter, Thyssen Bornemisza, Madrid, 12 November-9 February Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s the final episode of 2023 and so, as always, it’s our review of the year. Host Ben Luke is joined by Louisa Buck, The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent, based in London, and Ben Sutton, editor, Americas, based in New York, to discuss the big art and heritage news stories of the year, from rows over the Israel-Hamas war to thefts at the British Museum and the battle for art-fair supremacy between Art Basel and Frieze. Plus, we discuss the shows and works that made the biggest impact in 2023, from Jaune Quick-to-See Smith at the Whitney Museum of American Art to Philip Guston in Washington and London and Vermeer in Amsterdam to Faith Ringgold in Paris. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the final big art market event of the year, Art Basel in Miami Beach. The Art Newspaper’s associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, talks to our acting art market editor, Tim Schneider, in Miami about the fair, as tensions rise ahead of the pivotal 2024 US election. In Athens, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, or EMST, is next week opening a months-long programme which will end up with the entire museum filled with women artists. We talk to EMST’s director, Katerina Gregos, about the programme, called What if Women Ruled the World? And this episode’s Work of the Week is two objects: the 15th-century Florentine artist Francesco Pesellino’s panels telling the story of David and Goliath, made for a luxurious cassone or chest for the Medici family. The panels belong to the National Gallery in London and have just been restored for a new exhibition there, Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed. We talk to Jill Dunkerton, who did the restoration, about these extraordinary paintings.Art Basel in Miami Beach, Miami Beach Convention Center, until Sunday, 10 December.What if Women Ruled the World? begins at EMST, Athens, on 14 December.Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed, National Gallery, London, until 10 March 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The tragic human cost of the bombardment of the Gaza Strip in the Israel-Hamas war is well documented. What is now becoming clear is how many historic buildings and sites have also been destroyed. We talk to Sarvy Geranpayeh, a correspondent for The Art Newspaper in the Middle East, about the fate of heritage in Gaza. As a huge exhibition of the work of Emily Kam Kngwarray, perhaps the most celebrated of all Indigenous Australian artists, opens at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, we speak to the show’s curators Kelli Cole and Hetti Perkins, about her life and work. And this episode’s Work of the Week is a manuscript written by Paul Gauguin just months before he died in French Polynesia—Martin Bailey, our London correspondent, tells us more about the document, which has been acquired by The Courtauld in London.Emily Kam Kngwarray, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2 December-28 April 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, Ben Sutton discusses redundancies and ticket price-hikes at several museums across the US, and what it tells us about the economic climate for American museums in the wake of the pandemic. After a troubled 15th edition in 2022, Documenta—the influential exhibition that takes place twice a decade in Kassel, Germany—is at the centre of another controversy. The entire committee intended to appoint its artistic director has resigned following disputed allegations of antisemitism against one of the panel. Our correspondent in Germany, Catherine Hickley, tells us more about this and the wider crisis in the German art world relating to the war in Israel and Gaza. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Ronin (1963), a sculpture by the Singaporean-British artist Kim Lim. The work is part of the first survey of Lim’s work at a British gallery since 1999, at The Hepworth Wakefield. Marie-Charlotte Carrier, the curator of the show, tells us more about Lim’s life and art.To hear more about Documenta in 2022, listen to our episode from 24 June last year and our Review of the Year on 16 December 2022.Kim Lim: Space, Rhythm & Light, The Hepworth Wakefield, 25 November-2 June 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: the New York auctions. Tim Schneider, The Art Newspaper’s acting art market editor, joins us to discuss two weeks of major sales in New York and whether they have calmed a jittery art market. Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s, an exhibition exploring radical art made in six countries under communist rule in Central Eastern Europe, has just opened at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, US, before travelling to Phoenix, Arizona and Vancouver. We talk to the curator in Minneapolis, Pavel Pyś. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Terry Adkins’s Last Trumpet (1995). This sculptural installation is included in the latest edition of Artist’s Choice, a regular series of shows exploring the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, selected by notable figures outside the museum. This latest iteration, Spirit Movers, has been chosen by the fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner. We talk to Michelle Kuo, a curator of painting and sculpture at the museum, who has worked with Wales Bonner on the show.Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s is at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, until 10 March 2024, it then travels to the Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona, US, 17 April-29 September 2024 and then the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada, 2 November 2024-23 March 2025.Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner—Spirit Movers, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 18 November-7 April 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: live art and activism. Performance art has long been used as a vehicle for protest and political activism and now, in its tenth edition, the Performa Biennial in New York has a new programme dedicated to artists exploring the subject. Protest and Performance: A Way of Life, which started as part of the 19-day festival this week, features eight events involving artists from across the world but with particular links to the Middle East, While it was programmed months ahead of the present war in Gaza, it has inevitably gained further relevance. We talk to Defne Ayas, the senior program advisor, and Kathy Noble, the senior curator at Performa, about the programme. In the UK, the National Trust, which looks after historic buildings and landscapes across Britain, has become the subject of a row between its current management and campaigners who argue that it has strayed from its essential remit. The Art Newspaper’s associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, speaks to Martin Drury, a former director-general of the Trust, about why it has prompted such an intense debate. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Derich Born from 1533, a newly restored painting that features in an exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery in London, one of the principal venues for the UK’s Royal Collection. The show, Holbein at the Tudor Court, is curated by Kate Heard, and she tells us about the picture.Performa Biennial 2023, New York, until 19 November. Visit performa2023.org for details of events in the Protest and Performance strand.Holbein at the Tudor Court, Queen’s Gallery, London, until 14 April 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.