This week, Paris’s resurgence: is the French capital stealing London’s thunder? As established and up-and-coming galleries open branches in Paris and the Fiac art fair opens there, we ask Melanie Gerlis if this is indeed a shift of power from the UK to the French capital. For this episode’s Work of the Week, Donatien Grau, curator of contemporary programmes at the Musée d’Orsay discusses Lady of Uruk, a painting from one of the two shows of the work of the South African artist Marlene Dumas that have just opened at the museum. And as the Château de Versailles, and the Louvre and the Centre Pompidou in Paris all pay tribute to Christian Boltanski, who died in July, Annalisa Rimmaudo, curator at the Pompidou, discusses the three displays and remembers this leading figure in French art over the past 50 years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is Paris on the rise? Plus, Marlene Dumas at the Musée d'Orsay and Christian Boltanksi remembered

From breaking news and insider insights to exhibitions and events around the world, the team at The Art Newspaper picks apart the art world's big stories with the help of special guests. An award-winning podcast hosted by Ben Luke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The publication in April of Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Index Annual Report has provided the art world with much food for thought. We look at the implications for artists and institutions with Louis Jebb, the managing editor of The Art Newspaper and our technology specialist. As the Centre Pompidou in Paris is taken over on all its floors by what it calls the “ninth art”—graphic novels and comics—we talk to Joel Meadows, the editor-in-chief of Tripwire magazine and a comics aficionado, about the rise of this subculture in museums and the market. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Edgar Degas’ Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando (1879), which depicts a Black circus performer, Anna Albertine Olga Brown, who was briefly known as Miss La La. She and the painting are the subject of a new exhibition at the National Gallery in London opening next week. We talk to Anne Robbins, the curator of paintings at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and external curator of the exhibition, and Sterre Overmars, the curatorial fellow for post-1800 paintings at the National Gallery, about the painting.
Comics on Every Floor, Centre Pompidou, Paris, until 4 November.
Discover Degas & Miss La La, National Gallery, London, 6 June-1 September.  
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Art’s AI reckoning, the rise of comic art, and Degas’ Miss La La

As the Louvre’s director admits that the Paris museum wants to move its most famous painting away from the crowded gallery in which it is currently displayed, we ask the Leonardo specialist Martin Kemp: does the museum have a Mona Lisa problem? We also talk about the painting’s continuing allure and the ongoing efforts to explain its mysteries. In London, remarkably, Judy Chicago has just opened her first major multidisciplinary survey in a British public gallery, at the Serpentine North. We talk to her about the show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Christian Schad’s Self-Portrait with Model (1927). The painting features in Splendour and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany at the Leopold Museum in Vienna. Hans-Peter Wipplinger, the director of the museum and co-curator of the show, tells us more.
Judy Chicago: Revelations, Serpentine North, London, until 1 September.
Splendour and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany, Leopold Museum, Vienna, until 29 September. 
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The Mona Lisa's endless, and problematic, allure; Judy Chicago; Christian Schad and the New Objectivity

We take a tour of Tate Britain’s new exhibition, Now You See Us, featuring more than 100 women artists who worked between the 16th and 20th centuries, with Tabitha Barber, its curator. The Dia Art Foundation has reached its half century and its director, Jessica Morgan, tells us how it has changed in that time, and especially how it has radically expanded the range of artists it shows and collects. We also discuss the new commission at Dia Beacon by Steve McQueen. And this episode’s Work of the Week is one of the few record-breaking paintings in a relatively middling auction week in New York: Martin Wong’s Portrait of Mikey Piñero at Ridge Street and Stanton (1985), which sold for more than $1.6m (with fees) on Tuesday evening at Christie’s. Barry Blinderman, who sold the work in 1985 from his Semaphore gallery in New York, tells us more about the painting and the extraordinary circumstances of its making.
Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920, Tate Britain, London, until 13 October.
Steve McQueen: Bass, Dia Beacon, until 12 May 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tate’s historic women artists show, Dia at 50, Martin Wong’s record-breaking painting

We talk to The Art Newspaper’s reporter Sarvy Geranpayeh about her conversations with six Palestinian artists about their daily lives amid Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza. Frank Stella, one of the key artists in the history of American abstraction, has died, aged 87. We speak to Bonnie Clearwater, the director and chief curator of the NSU Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who worked with Stella on two landmark shows. And as Spring finally arrives in London, this episode’s Work of the Week is, fittingly, Vanessa Bell’s View into a Garden (1926). It features in an exhibition opening next week at the Garden Museum in London, called Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors. Emma House, the curator at the museum, tells me more.
Glory of the World: Color Field Painting (1950s to 1983), NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, US, until 25 August. Frank Stella: Recent Sculpture, Deitch Projects, New York, until 24 May.
Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors, Garden Museum, London, 15 May-29 September. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gaza: artists’ stories, Frank Stella remembered, Vanessa Bell’s garden view

After years of decreasing public funding, the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic and enduring questions around the ethics of corporate sponsorship, UK museums are facing unprecedented financial pressures. Some commentators are suggesting that the time has come to abandon the policy of free admission to museums that is viewed by many as key to the cultural fabric of the UK. Among those arguing for charging is the critic and broadcaster Ben Lewis, who joins Ben Luke to discuss the issue. This week, the British Museum opened the exhibition Michelangelo: the Last Decades. It focuses on the period after 1534, when Michelangelo left his native Florence for Rome, never to return, and embarked on many of his most ambitious projects. We take a tour of the show with its curator, Sarah Vowles. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Maria Blanchard’s Girl at Her First Communion (1914). The painting features in a new exhibition at the Museo Picasso in Málaga. Its curator, José Lebrero Stals, tells us more about this underappreciated Spanish artist, who was at the heart of the Parisian avant garde in the 1910s and 20s.
Michelangelo: the Last Decades, British Museum, until 28 July.
María Blanchard: A Painter in Spite of Cubism, Museo Picasso Málaga, Spain, until 29 September.
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Is Paris on the rise? Plus, Marlene Dumas at the Musée d'Orsay and Christian Boltanksi remembered

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