The Week in Art

Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), the work featuring a banana stuck to a wall with grey duct tape, sold at Sotheby’s in New York, on Wednesday for $5m or $6.2m with fees. But how did other works fare at this week’s auctions in New York? Ben Luke talks to Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, about the sales. Frank Auerbach, the painter who escaped the Holocaust and dedicated more than 70 years to creating portraits and cityscapes in London in raw, thick paint and expressive charcoal, has died. We speak to the curator of three of his most important exhibitions—and a model for Auerbach for more than 40 years—Catherine Lampert, about his work. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Mzwandile at home after coming from the rehab center (2018), a photograph from Nyaope, a series by the South African photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa. In the series he explored the devastating effect on his local community of a heroin-based drug, called nyaope. The work is part of the exhibition Heroin Falls, at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, UK, and I spoke to Lindo about the work.

Heroin Falls, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK, 23 November-27 April 2025

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UK museums are at a moment of transformation with a new generation of directors taking the helm at several of the major national institutions in London. So for this landmark 300th episode, we felt it was a good moment to look at the challenges and opportunities for museums now and in the future. We invited Gus Casely-Hayford of V&A East, Nicholas Cullinan of the British Museum and Karin Hindsbo of Tate Modern to join our host Ben Luke for a wide-ranging discussion.

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This week: two exhibitions in London are showing remarkable works made during the Renaissance. At the King’s Gallery, the museum that is part of Buckingham Palace, Drawing the Italian Renaissance offers a thematic journey through 160 works on paper made across Italy between 1450 and 1600. Ben Luke talks to Martin Clayton, Head of Prints and Drawings at the Royal Collection Trust, about the show. At the Royal Academy, meanwhile, the timescale is much tighter: a single year, 1504 to be precise, when Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael were all in Florence. We talk to Julien Domercq, a curator at the Academy, about this remarkable crucible of creativity. And this episode’s Work of the Week is a magnum opus of Renaissance textiles: the Battle of Pavia Tapestries, made in Brussels to designs by Bernard van Orley, and currently on view in an exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Thomas Campbell, the director of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, talks to The Art Newspaper’s associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, about the series.

Drawing the Italian Renaissance, King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London, until 9 March 2025

Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c.1504, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 9 November-16 February 2025

Art and War in the Renaissance: The Battle of Pavia Tapestries, de Young Museum, San Francisco, US, until 12 January; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, spring 2025

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Shortly after the US election on 5 November, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington opens The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, a radical new perspective on the history of the discipline from 1792 to now. Ahead of its opening, Ben Luke speaks to Karen Lemmey, a curator of sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and co-curator of the exhibition. In Warsaw, the Museum of Modern Art—a project 20 years in the making—has partially opened. We speak to its director, Joanna Mytkowska, about the long road to the unveiling and the upheavals in Polish politics along the way. And this episode’s Work of the Week is The Lamentation over the Dead Christ (early 1620s) by Jusepe de Ribera. It features in the first survey of the Spanish-born Baroque artist ever staged in France, at the Petit Palais in Paris. The museum’s director, Annick Lemoine, tells us more.

The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., 8 November-14 September 2025.

The Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw is open now; its full programme will be unveiled in February 2025.

Ribera: Shadows and Light, Petit Palais, Paris, until 23 February 2025.

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This week: with less than two weeks before the US goes to the polls, and with early voting underway, Ben Luke talks to The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, Ben Sutton, about what we might expect depending on whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins the presidential election on 5 November. The exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350 is currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and will open at the National Gallery in London next March. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, travelled to the Tuscan city to look at the work of some of the Sienese artists who light up the show, in the context of the city itself. He was guided by the co-curator of the exhibition, Caroline Campbell, the director of the National Gallery of Ireland. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Personal Accounts, an ongoing series of video installations exploring patriarchal violence by the South African artist Gabrielle Goliath. The latest cycle in the series, called Mango Blossoms, opens at the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh this weekend and we speak to Gabrielle about the work.

Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300‒1350, is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, until 26 January 2025; National Gallery, London, 8 March-22 June 2025.

Gabrielle Goliath’s Personal Accounts: Mango Blossoms is shown alongside a number of other cycles from the series at the Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 26 October-15 February 2025. The series also features in Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere, Venice Biennale, until 24 November.

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After descending on London last week, the art world arrived in Paris this week, with the main attraction being the Art Basel Paris art fair—now staged in the renovated Belle Epoque masterpiece, the Grand Palais. An editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper, Jane Morris, was at the VIP opening and tells us more. As always, alongside the fair are a number of eye-catching museum shows and projects. Among them is Chapelle, a new in-situ work for the Musée Picasso by the Argentinian artist Guillermo Kuitca. Ben Luke talks to Kuitca about the piece. And this episode’s Work of the Week is June (2022) by Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, a work from a series in which the Polish-born Romani artist reimagines astrologically themed frescoes at the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara in order to explore the history and contemporary life of the Roma people. Our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, talks to Mirga-Tas about the work, as it goes on display at Tate St Ives in the UK.

Art Basel Paris, Grand Palais, until Sunday, 20 October.

Chapelle by Guillermo Kuitca, Musée Picasso, Paris, until 31 December 2027.

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Tate St Ives, UK, 19 October-5 January 2025

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The Frieze London art fair has a new look for 2024 as it looks to keep its freshness amid increased competition with the new kid on the art fair block, next week’s Art Basel Paris. So how effective is the re-design? Ben Luke talks to Kabir Jhala, the art market editor at The Art Newspaper, about this year’s fair and about the auctions which have also taken place in London this week. The duo The White Pube who, since 2015, have shaken-up the world of art criticism in the UK, have just published a new book, called Poor Artists. We speak to the duo, Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad, about it. And this episode’s Work of the Week is a vital contribution to the history of the Italian Arte Povera group. Giuseppe Penone’s Alpi Marittime (1968) has just gone on display in a new survey of Arte Povera at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris. The exhibition is curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and we talk to her about Penone’s work.

Frieze London and Frieze Masters, until 13 October, Regent’s Park, London.

Poor Artists by The White Pube, Particular Books (UK), £20 (hb), Prestel (US) published 12 November, $24.99; thewhitepube.com.

Arte Povera, Bourse de Commerce, Paris, until 20 January.Subscription offer: get three months for just £1/$1/€1. Choose between our print and digital or digital-only subscriptions. Visit theartnewspaper.com to find out more.

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This week: a huge survey of the work of the late linchpin of the Los Angeles contemporary scene Mike Kelley has arrived at Tate Modern in London. We speak to its co-curator Catherine Wood about this enormously influential artist and his visceral and absurd response to popular culture and folk traditions of the US. A major show of Indian art made between 1975 and 1998, a pivotal period of political, social and economic change in the country, opened this week at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. Shanay Jhaveri, a former curator of international art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York who is now head of visual arts at the Barbican, leads us in a tour of show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Raoul Dufy’s Thirty Years or La Vie en Rose (1931), a painting made originally for the 30th anniversary of a gallery in Paris, that was owned by the pioneering woman gallerist Berthe Weill. She is the subject of an exhibition at the Grey Art Museum at New York University, which will tour next year to Montreal and Paris. Lynn Gumpert, the co-curator of the show and director of the Grey Art Museum, tells us about the painting, the artist and the dealer.

Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit, Tate Modern, London, until 9 March 2025; Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 12 April-15 September 2025.

The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975–1998, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 5 October-5 January 2025; and you can hear an in-depth interview with Nalini Malani on A brush with…, that’s the episode from 21 February this year.

Make Way for Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde, Grey Art Museum, New York, until 1 March; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 10 May-7 September 2025; Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, 8 October 2025-25 January 2026.

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This week, three major international shows: Claude Monet’s Thames views in London, the Henri Matisse retrospective in Basel and Helen Frankenthaler in Florence. An exhibition that Claude Monet hoped to see in his lifetime but which never happened has at last become a reality. A gathering of Monet’s views of the Thames—looking from his hotel room at the Savoy and from across the river on a private terrace of St Thomas’s hospital—has just opened at the Courtauld Gallery in London. Monet had hoped to stage such an event in London soon after the paintings were exhibited to acclaim in Paris in 1904, but so quickly had they dispersed, he was unable to do so. Ben Luke spoke to the curator of the show, Karen Serres, first in the very room at the Savoy Hotel where he made many of the paintings, and then in the exhibition itself. Meanwhile, a rare European retrospective of Henri Matisse’s work has opened at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel. Matisse: Invitation to the Voyage focuses on the artist’s travels, in the world and also in his imagination, through paintings, sculptures and cut-outs made over more than 50 years. Ben Luke went to Basel and spoke to Raphaël Bouvier, the curator. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Mediterranean Thoughts (1960) one of the paintings in Helen Frankenthaler: Painting without Rules, a new exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. The Art Newspaper’s associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, spoke to Douglas Dreishpoon, who organised the show.

Monet and London: Views of the Thames, Courtauld Gallery, London, until 19 January 2025.

Matisse – Invitation to the Voyage, Beyeler Foundation, Basel, Switzerland, until 26 January 2025.

Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, until 26 January 2025.

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This week: the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK, has invited the US artist Glenn Ligon to explore its history and collections, and his interventions are revealed this week. Ben Luke goes to Cambridge to talk to Ligon about the project. Few artists’ lives prompt as much discussion as that of Paul Gauguin, and a new biography of the French artist by Sue Prideaux has just been published. We talk to Sue about the book. And this episode’s Work of the Week is the piece that has just been unveiled on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Mil Veces un Instante or (A Thousand Times in an Instant) by Teresa Margolles is made up of plaster casts of the faces of 726 trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people. Ekow Eshun, the chair of the group that commissions the projects for the Fourth Plinth, speaks to our associate digital editor, Alexander Morrison, about the work.

Glenn Ligon: All Over The Place, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, until 2 March 2025. Distinguishing Piss from Rain: Writings and Interviews by Glenn Ligon, Hauser & Wirth Publishers, £32 or $38. Untitled (America/Me), High Line, New York, until November 2024. Listen to our in-depth interview, A brush with… Glenn Ligon from 18 August 2021.

Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin, by Sue Prideaux, Faber, £30; published in the US next year, by WW Norton, $39.99.

Teresa Margolles: Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant), Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square, until 2026.

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