Author: Iris

Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh will become the first African woman to oversee the artistic direction of the 2026 Venice Biennale. (© Andile Buka; Image courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA)Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh will become the first African woman to oversee the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026, The organization announced yesterday (December 3). Since May 2019, Kouoh has served as Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, South Africa, one of the largest contemporary art museums on the African continent. During her tenure, she organized solo exhibitions featuring African and African diaspora artists such as Otobong Nkanga,…

For beloved modernist sculptor Ruth Asawa, the admiration “one-of-a-kind” now takes on new meaning. Last month, a crater on Mercury was named after the late artist, making her one of a rare group of fewer than 30 female artists whose legacies are etched into our solar system, including Augustus Augusta Savage, Tarsila do Amoral and Dorothea Lange.The International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially named the crater “Asawa” on November 14, but the news came after American curator and art writer Helen Molesworth Officially exposed. Ruth Asawa: A Life’s Work (2019), shared the tidbit in an Instagram post earlier this week. According…

Jasleen Kaur wins the 2024 Turner Prize for work reflecting on her childhood in Glasgow, including a Ford Escort Cabriolet Mk3 covered with a giant doily titled Social mobile. Kaul, 38, is the youngest contestant on this year’s shortlist. The judges were impressed by her “unexpected and interesting mix of material”. The annual Turner Prize is the UK’s most prestigious visual arts honour. The winner will receive £25,000 and the shortlisted artist will receive £10,000. Every other year the works are shown in an exhibition at London’s Tate Britain (where the prize travels across the country), with the 2024 exhibition…

Discussions between Greece and the British Museum over the fate of the Parthenon marble reliefs are heating up, with Greek officials optimistic about the possibility of a deal by 2025, according to a report from the British Museum. financial times This week. Years of dialogue between the two governments have focused on possible loan arrangements. Under the plan, some artifacts may be temporarily returned to Athens, while important Greek artefacts will be displayed in London. The sculptures, known in Britain as the Elgin Marbles, were removed from the Parthenon in Athens by Lord Elgin during the Ottoman occupation of Greece…

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed a bill establishing plans to transfer the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia to the Smithsonian Institution. The unanimous vote came after the House passed a companion bill in September that paved the way for the process. The bill passed by the Senate would create an eight-member committee appointed by members of the House and Senate to evaluate Weitzman’s feasibility of joining the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian Institution is a trust for museums and research institutions owned by the United States government and funded in part by the federal government. treasury.…

Multihyphenates rule this winter, a season headlined by attempts to fully assess artists whose work resists the traditional museum retrospective format. Within Germany alone, Shu Lea Cheang, who has shown her work in movie theaters, on the internet, and in art galleries, will finally get a career-spanning survey, and Semiha Berksoy, a Wagnerian soprano by training, will get an expansive show of her art. Leigh Bowery, an unclassifiable character associated with 1980s London, is getting a Tate retrospective, and Rammellzee, a Basquiat collaborator and a madcap graffiti artist, is having a Palais de Tokyo retrospective. The ambition guiding these shows…

As the year 2024 comes to a close, it’s a time to celebrate the creativity of this year. Among the artists is Bruce Cowell, a fine-art photographer from Canberra, Australia, whose work has been evolving and captivating for four decades. His photography goes beyond merely recording moments—it uncovers hidden truths in everyday life, challenging us to pause and reflect. Cowell’s art moves beyond technical expertise. For him, photography is a language that communicates what words often cannot. His images dig into the themes that connect us, exploring the decisions we make and the forces that shape our lives. Cowell’s goal…

People come to Art Basel Miami Beach to buy art, attend parties, gawk at social-media-famous socialites, or some mixture of the three. Museums generally don’t offer the public any opportunities for any of that, and so, even though Miami has plenty of institutions, these spaces must play second fiddle to Art Basel and the other fairs that orbit it. But there are good reasons to venture beyond the fairs and into institutional walls this week—not the least because museums offer a temporary reprieve from dealers trying to hawk their wares. Here is the good news: Miami, unlike the other cities…

Hassan Hajjaj is one of the leading photographers of his generation. He was born in Larache, Morocco in 1961 and moved to London when he was 12 years old. The contrast between his life in Morocco and what he saw in the UK had a profound influence on his work, as did a visit to Morocco in 1997. 1990s. In his photos, Hajjaj shows stylishly dressed people in colorful spaces. The floors and backgrounds of these spaces often contrast with the colors of the subjects’ clothing or the couches and chairs on which they sit. In these gorgeous, large-scale photographs,…

As the arts community welcomes another Arts Week in Miami Beach, everyone from movie stars to chart-topping musicians and professional athletes joins in on the fair’s festivities. Art Basel regular Leonardo DiCaprio hosted a gala honoring nonprofit CORE (Community Organizing Relief Efforts), while Travis Scott ) attended the Kingpin Bowling party at Lucky Strike in Miami. Meanwhile, Michael Phelps reportedly headed to Casadonna to attend DJ Khaled’s ‘We The Best Golf Tournament’ welcome reception, Janelle Monáe ) spinning on the DJ booth at the Cartier Trinity 100 celebration. However, not everyone was there to witness it all unfold, including -…