Earlier this year, we took a tour of the V&A East Storehouse, the Victoria and Albert Museum’s vast new complex in East London. This week, it opens the David Bowie Centre, a dedicated space to the music icon. It is the permanent repository of thousands of items from Bowie’s archive, which are on display and also available for personal study. Ben Luke explores the displays at the centre with the curator, Madeleine Haddon. Last week, a new biennial opened in Bukhara in Uzbekistan, part of a major cultural shift in the country. The Art Newspaper’s art market editor, Kabir Jhala went to Bukhara for the opening event and delivers his verdict, and we also hear from its curator, Diana Campbell. And this episode’s Work of the Week is a pair of paintings: Untitled (2025), a new piece by Hurvin Anderson, and West Indies (2014) by Kara Walker. They are part of an exhibition at Michael Werner Gallery in London, curated by the critic and writer Hilton Als, which explores the Dominican-born writer Jean Rhys. We went to the gallery to talk to Als about these two remarkable paintings and his fascination with Jean Rhys’s life and work.

David Bowie Centre, V&A East Storehouse, from 13 September.The Bukhara Biennial continues until 20 November.

Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World, curated by Hilton Als, Michael Werner, London, 12 September-22 November.

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Since we were last on air in June, the US government has announced what it calls a comprehensive internal review of activities at eight of the 21 museums under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institution. Meanwhile, one of those museums, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., saw the artist Amy Sherald cancel a long-scheduled exhibition of her work, citing censorship and institutional fear of the US government. Ben Luke talks to Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper’s editor-in-chief in the Americas, about Donald Trump and his administration’s growing interference in museums, and whether Sherald’s act of resistance is an outlier or a marker of a wider art world response. The first major art fair of the new season, Frieze Seoul, is happening this week in the South Korean capital, after a period of political turmoil there. Our correspondent in Asia, Lisa Movius, visits the fair and gauges the mood. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79), by Dara Birnbaum. This landmark of video art is part of a new exhibition at San Marco Art Centre, or SMAC, a new space in the Procuratie Vecchie in St Mark’s Square, Venice. The show, called The Quantum Effect, explores the work of several leading contemporary artists in the context of quantum theory. I talk to the exhibition’s curators, Daniel Birnbaum—no relation—and Jacqui Davies, and to Ulf Danielsson, a physicist who has suggested quantum equations to accompany each of the pieces in the show.

Frieze Seoul until 6 September.

The Quantum Effect, SMAC, Venice, Italy, 5 September-23 November.

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An exhibition opens this weekend at Conditions, the low-cost studio programme for artists in Croydon, on the outskirts of south London, featuring two of the great works of art of recent decades: Mark Leckey’s Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999) and Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message, the Message is Death (2016). Ben Luke talks to Mark and AJ about showing together and the affinities and contrasts in these two contemporary masterpieces.

The 12th SITE SANTA FE International exhibition also opens on Friday, and Ben speaks to Cecilia Alemani, the artistic director of the biennial, about the show, which is called Once Within a Time.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is Glacial Decoy, the 1979 collaboration between the choreographer Trisha Brown and the artist Robert Rauschenberg. This landmark work is the subject of a new exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and its curator, Brandon Eng, tells us more.

ARTHUR JAFA / MARK LECKEY: HARDCORE / LOVE, Conditions, 28 June-10 August. You can find out more about Conditions at conditions.studio.

Listen to A brush with... Arthur Jafa and A brush with... Mark Leckey wherever you get your podcasts.

Those interviews feature alongside 23 others from the A brush with… series in the book by Ben Luke, What is Art For? Contemporary artists on their influences, inspirations and disciplines, published by HENI, released on 2 September (US) and 4 September (UK), $39.95/£29.95 (hb).

12th SITE SANTA FE International: Once Within a Time, 27 June-12 January 2026.

Trisha Brown and Robert Rauschenberg: Glacial Decoy, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, US, until 24 May 2026.

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The Art Newspaper’s digital editor Alexander Morrison is in Basel for the annual Art Basel fair. He talks to our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, about the atmosphere at the fair after a long downturn in the art market and underwhelming auctions last month in New York. While some major museums around the world would rather avoid the topic of returning objects acquired in the colonial period to their countries of origin, The Wereldmuseum in Amsterdam is attempting to get on the front foot, with an exhibition called Unfinished past: return, keep, or...? One notable aspect of the show is that it is not presenting any human remains. Ben Luke speaks to our correspondent in the Netherlands, Senay Boztas, about the future of human body parts in Dutch museums. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Untitled or Not Yet (1966) by Eva Hesse, which is in a new exhibition at The Courtauld in London, called Abstract Erotic. The exhibition unites Hesse with fellow sculptors Alice Adams and Louise Bourgeois. Ben talks to Jo Applin, the co-curator of the show.

Art Basel continues until Sunday, 22 June.

Unfinished Pasts, Wereldmuseum, Amsterdam, until 3 January 2027.

Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams, The Courtauld, 20 June-14 September; Louise Bourgeois: Drawings from the 1960s, the Courtauld, 20 June-14 September.

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The Dulwich Picture Gallery, the UK’s first purpose-built public art gallery, is hosting an exhibition of one of Britain’s brightest young painting talents, Rachel Jones. Ben Luke visits the gallery to talk to her about the paintings—giant and tiny—in the show. The latest Liverpool Biennial has just opened in that great British city; Louisa Buck, The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent, joins Ben to review the show. And this episode’s Work of the Week, is the UK Aids Memorial Quilt, which was instigated in 1989 and commemorates the lives of 384 individuals affected by HIV and Aids. It is made up of 42 quilts made from multiple panels and a further 23 individual panels. The quilt is being shown at Tate Modern this weekend, and we speak to the writer Charlie Porter, who included the quilt in his recent novel Nova Scotia House and instigated the project to show it at Tate.

Rachel Jones: Gated Canyons, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, until 19 October.

Liverpool Biennial: BEDROCK, until 14 September.

The UK Aids Memorial Quilt, Tate Modern, until 16 June; Charlie Porter, Nova Scotia House, Penguin, £18.99; US: Nightboat Books, 21 October, $17.95.

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The fifth edition of London Gallery Weekend takes place this weekend, and opens as the global art market is at a low ebb. So what can it do to change the mood? Ben Luke speaks to Ananya Mukhopadhyay, the managing director of Ames Yavuz, which is opening a new London gallery to coincide with the weekend events, and Jeremy Epstein, co-director of the Edel Assanti gallery, who is the co-founder and co-director of London Gallery Weekend. In 2018, a devastating electrical fire tore through the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro with catastrophic consequences. This week, it will temporarily reopen some of its galleries. The museum’s director, Alexander Kellner, tells The Art Newspaper’s digital editor Alexander Morrison about its steady rise from the ashes. And this episode’s Work of the Week is a miniature portrait of Jane Austen by an anonymous 19th-century artist. The work belongs to the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, which this week opens the exhibition A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250. The show is co-organised by Juliette Wells, Professor of Literary Studies at Goucher College in Baltimore, and she speaks to Alexander Morrison about the portrait.

London Gallery Weekend, 6-8 June. Simon Lehner: Of Peasants & Basterds, Edel Assanti, 6 June-22 August; Polyphonies, Ames Yavuz, London, 6-26 June.

The temporary reopening of the National Museum of Brazil continues until the end of July.

A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250, Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 6 June-14 September

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We visit major museum projects unveiled this week in London and New York: Ben Luke takes a tour of V&A East Storehouse in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which offers unprecedented access to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection. He meets the deputy director of the V&A, Tim Reeve, and speaks to key members of the team that are making this radical museological vision for London a reality: the museum’s lead technician, Matt Clarke, its senior curator Georgia Haseldine, and Kate Parsons, the director of collections care and access. The Art Newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Americas, Ben Sutton, visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which this week unveiled its revamped Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. The wing holds the Met’s collections of work from Africa, the Ancient Americas, and Oceania. Ben talks to Alisa LaGamma, the curator of African art who is in charge of the Rockefeller Wing, and the Papua New Guinea-born, Brisbane-based artist Taloi Havini, one of a number of contemporary artists who created new works for the the project. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Down and Up (2024-25) by Rachel Whiteread. It features in a new show of Whiteread’s work, the first at the Goodwood Art Foundation, a not-for-profit contemporary art gallery and sculpture park in West Sussex, UK. Ben Luke talks to Rachel about the work.

V&A East Storehouse, London, opens 31 May.

The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art New York, reopens 31 May.

Rachel Whiteread, Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex, UK, 31 May-2 November.

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A host of exhibitions and events this month and next celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, one of the godfathers of kinetic and auto-destructive art. Ben Luke speaks to Roland Wetzel, the director of the Tinguely Museum in Basel about the artist’s life and work, and the events marking the centenary. In Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Fenix, a museum about migration, has just opened, featuring a dramatic stainless steel tornado form on its roof. We discuss the museum with its director, Anne Kremers. And this episode’s Work of the Week is by an immigrant artist, Ben Shahn, who was born in modern-day Lithuania but travelled as a child to the US, where he became a leading painter associated with Social Realism. Among his greatest achievements was the mural The Meaning of Social Security, painted between 1940 and 1942 in Washington D.C. to reflect the benefits of the then-recent Social Security Act. Shahn is the subject of a major show that opened this week at the Jewish Museum in New York. We speak to Laura Katzman, the co-curator of the exhibition with the Jewish Museum's Stephen Brown, about Harvesting Wheat (1941), Shahn’s study for one of the figures in the mural.

The Tinguely Museum in Basel, Switzerland, has a permanent display of his work; Scream Machines–Art Ghost Train, by Rebecca Moss and Augustin Rebetez, Tinguely Museum, until 30 August; Mechanics and Humanity: Eva Aeppli and Jean Tinguely, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany, until 24 August; Niki de Saint Phalle & Jean Tinguely: Myths & Machines, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Bruton, UK, until 1 February 2026; Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Pontus Hultén, Grand Palais, Paris, 20 June-4 January 2026.

The Fenix museum is open now.

Ben Shahn: On Nonconformity, Jewish Museum, New York, 23 May-12 October. The book accompanying it published on 3 June by Princeton University Press, priced $45.00/£38.00.

The Meaning of Social Security murals:

https://art.gsa.gov/artworks/637/the-meaning-of-social-security?ctx=3bc918796c456cc8fb8e3d3f033918d4249d0ce6&idx=6

https://livingnewdeal.org/sites/wilbur-j-cohen-building-shahn-frescoes-washington-dc/#lg=1&slide=1

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Koyo Kouoh remembered, Queen Elizabeth II memorial, Jasper Johns by Robert Storr

Koyo Kouoh, the Cameroon-born curator who was director of Zeitz Mocaa in Cape Town and had been invited to curate next year’s Venice Biennale died on 10 May. There has been an outpouring of moving tributes to Kouoh from artists, curators and gallerists across the world, and Ben Luke speaks to Nolan Oswald Dennis, the Johannesburg-based artist who has a current show at Zeitz, and Liza Essers, the owner and director of Goodman Gallery, about her life and work. A design competition for the Queen Elizabeth II National Memorial in St James’s Park in London has been launched, with five designs competing for the commission. We talk to Sandy Nairne, the former director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, who is on the committee tasked with choosing the winning design. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Regrets, a painting from the series of that name made by Jasper Johns in 2013. The work is discussed in a new book of writings on Johns by the former curator at the Museum of Modern Art and of the Venice Biennale in 2007, Robert Storr. We speak to Storr about the work.

Nolan Oswald Dennis: Understudies, Zeitz Mocaa, Cape Town, South Africa, until 27 July; Nolan Oswald Dennis: throwers, Gasworks, London, until 22 June.

To see the five proposals for the Queen Elizabeth II National Memorial and give feedback visit competitions.malcolmreading.com/queenelizabethmemorial#overview. The opportunity to give feedback on the designs will close on 19 May.

Robert Storr, Focal Points: Jasper Johns, HENI publishing, £19.99 (hb).

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This week: after a two-year closure, the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing reopens this week, revealing a major overhaul by the architect Annabelle Selldorf. The gallery has also rehung its entire collection and Ben Luke takes a tour of both the revamped building and the new displays with the National Gallery director, Gabriele Finaldi. Tate Modern celebrates its 25th anniversary this weekend, and Luke talks to The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent Louisa Buck and another of our regular contributors, Dale Berning Sawa, about its seismic impact in London and beyond over the past quarter of a century, its complex present circumstances and its future. And this episode’s Work of the Week is the late German artist Inge Mahn’s sculpture Balancing Towers (1989). It is a key work in an exhibition called “Are we still up to it?” – Art & Democracy at the Herrenchiemsee, the castle on an island in the Chiemsee lake, in southern Bavaria, Germany. Oliver Kase, the director of collections at the Pinakothek der Moderne, in Munich, and co-curator of the exhibition, joins Luke to discuss the sculpture.

The Sainsbury Wing and CC Land: The Wonder of Art, National Gallery, London, from 10 May. You can hear a conversation with Annabelle Selldorf about the Frick Collection on the episode of this podcast from 28 March 2025. And our interview with the architectural critic Rowan Moore reflecting on the debate about Selldorf’s alterations to the original Sainsbury Wing project is in the episode from 4 November 2022.

Tate Modern’s 25th Birthday Weekender, Tate Modern, London, 9-12 May.

“Are we still up to it?” – Art & Democracy, Herrenchiemsee Palace, Chiemsee, Germany, 10 May-12 October

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