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Articles by Benjamin Sutton
Public art on parade in New York City this autumn
There is a surreal streak in the public art that sprang up in parks and outdoor spaces across New York City this summer, including small objects rendered monumentally, otherworldly abstractions and animals reclaiming popular green spaces. On Governors Island, Alan Michelson’s large installation commissioned by More Art (with the Billion Oyster Project and Governors Island Arts), The Oyster (2026), nods to Indigenous shell middens and the bivalve’s rebounding population in New York Harbor.
Rare view into Tom Wesselmann’s studio
A lucky few will get to visit the late great Tom Wesselmann’s former studio in Cooper Square this month for an invite-only exhibition pairing the Pop Art pioneer’s work with that of the Japanese American contemporary artist Tomokazu Matsuyama.
The expanded Independent 20th Century fair offers abstraction of all stripes
The Independent 20th Century fair in New York has moved from Downtown to Uptown and expanded its footprint substantially, but in its fifth edition it is still fundamentally doing what it set out to do in 2022: provide visitors with opportunities to discover works from the previous century by long-overlooked artists or rarely exhibited bodies of work by familiar Modernists.
This autumn’s standout shows in New York, from Modern architecture in Africa to Fluxus co-founder Alison Knowles
The 1960s were an era of cultural blossoming across West Africa. With 17 nations gaining independence in 1960—joining Ghana, which broke from the UK in 1957—people across the region sought to redefine their place in the world through new and innovative genres of music, dance and visual art that melded local traditions with modern aesthetics. Although often overlooked, creative architecture flourished as well.
'If I love it, I know it': collector and Pace Prints president Jacob Lewis on trusting first impressions
Much like his journey at Pace Prints —starting out as an intern 25 years ago, rising to become president and chief executive—Jacob Lewis has grown as a collector, starting with printer’s proofs to now acquiring across a range of media, albeit with printmaking always at the forefront. His collection includes pieces by many artists who have worked with Pace Prints, among them Robin F. Williams, Leonardo Drew, Peter Saul and Tomokazu Matsuyama.
A big B’Day gift: Beyoncé gives $2m to the Studio Museum in Harlem
The superstar musician, entrepreneur and art collector Beyoncé turned 45 on 4 September, and she marked the occasion not only by releasing a deluxe anniversary edition of her legendary 2006 album B’Day, but also by donating $2m to the Studio Museum in Harlem. “Art tells all our stories; the past and the present, but is not always accessible to everyone,” Beyoncé said in a statement.
Metropolitan Museum and designer John Galliano cancel planned Costume Institute exhibition amid backlash
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the British fashion designer John Galliano have called off an exhibition honouring Galliano that was planned for next spring, following a wave of opposition in light of the designer’s history of antisemitic statements.
Trump officials take down, explore sale of Kehinde Wiley painting commissioned for US embassy
The Department of State of the United States has removed a work by Kehinde Wiley that it commissioned for the US embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and that the current ambassador recently described as a symbol of “globalist and woke ideologies”. News of the work’s removal was first reported by Zachary Small of The New York Times .
Mary Heilmann, fearless colourist and singular abstract painter, has died, aged 86
Mary Heilmann, who adopted elements of post-war abstract painting, Post-Minimalist sculpture and craft processes into her distinctive and brightly chromatic pursuits, died on Friday (14 August), aged 86. According to an announcement posted on Instagram by her studio director, Heilmann died on New York’s Long Island from “complications from a fall”.
Trump orders signage to be erected outside Smithsonian museum warning visitors of political bias
In a dramatic escalation of the White House’s pressure campaign against the Smithsonian Institution over what it sees as overly “woke” and insufficiently patriotic programming at some of its museums, the US President Donald Trump has ordered signage be erected outside the National Museum of American History (NMAH) in Washington, DC, warning visitors of the allegedly skewed exhibits therein.
Artists’ monumental hot dog sculpture, now with patriotic toppings, returns to Times Square
Among foods that are improved when reheated, most people would probably not rank hot dogs very highly. But the artist duo Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw have once again defied conventional wisdom with the triumphant return of their monumental foodstuff sculpture Hot Dog in the City (2024).
Appeals court sides with Jeff Koons in copyright-infringement dispute over ‘Made in Heaven’ series
A federal appeals court in New York has sided with Jeff Koons in a years-long legal dispute related to his controversial Made in Heaven series (1989-91), with a three-judge panel affirming a lower court’s February 2025 ruling dismissing artist Michael A. Hayden’s copyright-infringement claim. The Second Circuit judges’ ruling, released on Tuesday (21 July), sides with the US District Court’s ruling from last year, concurring that Hayden waited too long to file his claim.
Shuttered San Francisco arts school will become college co-named for Nvidia founder Jensen Huang
Six months after the California College of the Arts (CCA) announced it will shut down next year and sell its campus to Nashville-based Vanderbilt University, the latter has revealed plans to keep the arts central to the Bay Area campus, with significant support from one of the biggest names in Silicon Valley.
Smithsonian museum will loan more than 200 works to institutions in all 50 states and Puerto Rico
On the eve of festivities in Washington, DC, marking 250 years since the signing of the US Declaration of Independence, the Smithsonian Institution’s foremost museum of modern and contemporary art revealed plans to lend more than 200 works from its collection to institutions in every corner of the country.
Workers at the Guggenheim in New York vote to authorise a strike
Last week, unionised workers at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York voted overwhelmingly in favour of authorising a strike should current negotiations with museum administrators drag on. Of the affected workers represented by Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers (UAW), 93% voted to authorise a strike. Negotiations over a new contract have been ongoing since December 2025; the union’s previous collective bargaining agreement expired at the end of that month.
New York’s Swiss Institute buys permanent home on the Bowery Original
The New York nonprofit Swiss Institute (SI), which has bounced around rental spaces across Manhattan since its founding in 1986, has acquired a property at 250 Bowery on the Lower East Side, and will open there in spring 2027. In the interim, SI has tapped the architecture firm Johnston Marklee to give its new ground floor and basement spaces an accessibility- and sustainability-focused overhaul. As ever, admission to the nonprofit’s galleries and events will remain free of charge.
Crystal Bridges, fresh off major expansion, hires Courtenay Finn as next chief curator
The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which inaugurated a 114,000-sq.-ft expansion of its campus in Bentonville, Arkansas earlier this month, has made three changes to its leadership team, most notably hiring Courtenay Finn as chief curator.
Memphis Art Museum reveals opening date and inaugural exhibitions for new building
The Memphis Art Museum will begin its next chapter, in a Herzog & de Meuron-designed mass timber building on the Mississippi riverfront, on 6 December. The institution formerly known as the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art announced on Wednesday (17 June) its opening date in the new complex, the details of its inaugural programme and a free-admission policy for locals.
The 2026 Whitney Biennial in five key themes
The 2026 Whitney Biennial (until 23 August) opened at a particularly volatile time—only a week after the US and Israel began their coordinated attack on Iran. And while the biennial’s 82nd edition lacks an official theme, the red threads of what “American” means and the lasting effects of US power abroad are so palpable that they succeed in uniting many of the works of the 56 artists, duos and collectives that populate the exhibition.
Roberto Lugo brings monumental tribute to Puerto Rican culture to Manhattan park
Manhattan’s Madison Square Park is now home to a vibrant monument to Puerto Rican excellence in the form of a 20ft-tall urn, its panels featuring portraits of the reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny, the US supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor, the actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, the baseball legend Roberto Clemente and others. Among the famous figures are two less recognisable subjects, Gilberto and Maribel Lugo, the parents of artist Roberto Lugo .
Sold-out Phillips auction in New York brings in $115.2m, more than double 2025 result
As the temperature in Midtown Manhattan climbed near 100ºF on Tuesday afternoon, art-market denizens sought shelter in Phillips’s cool below-ground sale room on Park Avenue for the auction house’s marquee spring auction.
New York’s Neue Galerie will merge with the Metropolitan Museum
The Neue Galerie, the Manhattan institution opened by the philanthropist Ronald S. Lauder in 2001 in a Beaux-Arts mansion on Fifth Avenue and home to the richest collection of 20th-century Austrian and German Modernism outside Europe, will merge with the neighbouring Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2028. The news comes two weeks before the Neue Galerie is due to close, on 27 May, for major renovations. It will reopen in the autumn, just in time to celebrate its 25th anniversary in November.
In Pictures: the best of Venice at Frieze New York
Precious Okoyomon is ubiquitous at the moment, showing not only in Venice (in the Holy See Pavilion) but also at the 2026 Whitney Biennial and MoMA PS1’s Greater New York quinquennial. Their work at Frieze is comparatively subtle—a group of four works on paper displayed in custom wood frames. “The works on paper draw on a more daily and intimate aspect of the mind behind the sculpture, behind the installations,” says Matthew Wood, one of the gallery’s co-founders.
Public art blossoms around New York
Gotham’s galleries and museums are rolling out their big spring shows this month, but do not overlook the city’s parks and streets. Anyone headed to Frieze New York at the Shed would do well to stroll along the High Line, taking in works including Derek Fordjour’s buoyant mural Backbreaker Double (2025) at West 22nd Street and Raven Halfmoon’s monumental ceramic bust West Side Warrior (2025) at Little West 12th Street.
‘I am very decisive’: designer Jennifer Gilbert on what she collects and why
The designer, entrepreneur, philanthropist and collector Jennifer Gilbert is based in and deeply committed to Detroit. Pophouse , the design studio she founded and where she serves as creative director, is based there. She serves on the board of the Midtown Detroit non-profit BasBlue and the board of governors of the renowned Cranbrook Academy of Art and its Cranbrook Art Museum, among other organisations.
New Museum unveils Sarah Lucas's bawdy Bowery commission
The New Museum’s inaugural commission for its new public plaza on the Bowery was unveiled on Tuesday (12 May), with Sarah Lucas’s ecstatic sculpture VENUS VICTORIA (2026) leaping into the breach. The British artist’s sculpture is a typically playful riff on a classic reclining nude. It features a pink-hued figure in yellow high heels straddling a giant cast-concrete washing machine.
Brendan Fernandes animates a century-old Chicago auditorium through dance
Seven dancers, dressed in flowing pants and tank tops in muted tones, are moving like a kind of 14-legged caterpillar, inching their way around a 12-sided mirrored bench at the centre of the stately Murphy Auditorium. The venue, which was built by the American College of Surgeons on Chicago’s Near North Side in 1926, features exquisite details like ornate cast-bronze doors by Tiffany Studios honouring famous doctors and stained-glass windows by the Willet Company.
Artists made their mark at 2026 Met Gala
Protests against the 2026 Met Gala's honorary chairs Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos did little to dampen the theatrical arrivals at the event on Monday (4 May), the most high-profile fundraising soirée of gala season in New York. The Bezoses reportedly contributed at least $10m, helping to raise a record $42m for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute (surpassing last year’s take of $31m).
The curator awakens: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art reveals inaugural exhibition lineup
When the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art finally opens in Los Angeles on 22 September, visitors will be treated to a suite of 18 thematic exhibitions curated by George Lucas, the Star Wars film-maker who founded the museum with his wife Mellody Hobson. The inaugural lineup of shows, revealed by the museum on Thursday (30 April), offers a fuller picture of the institution’s collection and how the concept of “narrative art” will manifest on its walls.
Towering homage to Buddhas destroyed by Taliban rises over Manhattan
Benjamin Sutton EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was originally published by The Art Newspaper , an editorial partner of CNN Style. For the next year and a half, visitors to the ultra-modern Hudson Yards development on Manhattan's far west side will be met by an icon of the ancient world. The fifth commission for the plinth on the High Line elevated park is an homage to the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the pair of 6th-century colossi in central Afghanistan that the Taliban blew up in 2001.
Un imponente homenaje a los Budas cuyas estatuas fueron destruidas por los talibanes se alza sobre Manhattan Original
Nueva YorkCNN — Nota del editor: Este artículo fue publicado originalmente por The Art Newspaper, socio editorial de CNN Style. Durante el próximo año y medio, los visitantes del ultramoderno complejo Hudson Yards, en el extremo oeste de Manhattan, se encontrarán con un ícono del mundo antiguo.
Towering homage to Buddhas destroyed by Taliban rises over Manhattan Original
See all topics Email Link Copied! EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published by The Art Newspaper, an editorial partner of CNN Style. New York — For the next year and a half, visitors to the ultra-modern Hudson Yards development on Manhattan’s far west side will be met by an icon of the ancient world.
Towering homage to Bamiyan Buddhas rises over Manhattan’s High Line
For the next year and a half, visitors to the ultra-modern Hudson Yards development on Manhattan’s far west side will be met by an icon of the ancient world. The fifth commission for the plinth on the High Line elevated park is an homage to the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the pair of 6th-century colossi in central Afghanistan that the Taliban blew up in 2001.
From the World Cup and the Olympics to two new museums: upcoming cultural attractions in Los Angeles
Los Angeles gets ready for the World Cup and the Olympics If the David Geffen Galleries and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art are the starry new additions to Los Angeles’s cast of blockbuster artistic attractions, then the SoFi Stadium (pictured above) is the sports equivalent. Opened in 2020, it is the most expensive stadium in the world, costing more than $6bn in today’s money.
Miami Beach’s Bass Museum picks architect for new pavilion
The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach has selected the Los Angeles-based architecture firm Johnston Marklee to lead its forthcoming expansion, which will see a new pavilion built on 22,000 sq. ft of space currently used for parking.
Chicago’s Neighbors and Barely fairs show the strengths of smaller, alternative formats
Collectors and curators in Chicago this week will of course spend the better part of at least one day plying the aisles of Expo Chicago inside the vast festival hall at Navy Pier, but many will also trek to a small storefront space seven miles south in the McKinley Park neighbourhood and stroll a couple miles north to a colourful apartment in a historic Gold Coast building.
At the latest edition of Expo Chicago (until 12 April), more than half of the stands are part of a curated section or thematic selection, extending the foremost Midwestern fair’s reputation as a magnet for curators and institutional leaders. The fair has long held a directors summit and curatorial forum, but its new director Kate Sierzputowski felt it was important for that institutional engagement to be felt in the aisles and stands, too.
Our pick of the best museum and gallery shows to see in Chicago this spring
For Dabin Ahn’s first solo show with Document in Chicago, the Korean artist is showing new paintings that meditate on memory, time and grief, and continue his experiments with breaking and expanding the picture plane. It comes just after a solo exhibition with François Ghebaly in Los Angeles, as well as a presentation of his works with the gallery at Frieze Los Angeles.
Art Institute of Chicago’s first Norman Rockwell acquisition is a home run
The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) recently acquired its first work by the beloved US illustrator Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)—his 1948 painting of dejected Chicago Cubs players following a double-header drubbing by the Boston Braves. The Dugout is the largest and most elaborate study in oil that Rockwell made for one of his most recognisable Saturday Evening Post covers.
Paul Pfeiffer will be inaugural artist-in-residence at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center arena
Paul Pfeiffer, the conceptual artist known for his uncanny interventions in mass-media imagery of superstar athletes and entertainers, will be the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn. The facility will also soon host newly installed and specially commissioned works by Sarah Sze, Rashid Johnson, Mark Bradford and Kambui Olujimi, as well as launch a project to bring moving-image works to the wraparound digital screen above its main plaza.
New York’s Independent fair reveals 76 exhibitors for first edition at Pier 36
New York’s Independent art fair is returning for its 17th edition this spring (14-17 May), though much about it will look and feel brand new. The contemporary art fair has relocated from the labyrinthine Spring Studios in Tribeca to the expansive Pier 36, on the East River, whose exterior is being transformed by the renowned architecture firm Solid Objectives Idenburg Liu (SO–IL) for the fair.
Comment | What is the role of art museums in times of civic stress?
For the second time in six years, Minneapolis is enduring heartbreak. Operation Metro Surge, as the federal government has deemed its increased immigration enforcement, has had significant impacts on artists, and our staff, visitors and broader communities. Many in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St Paul) have been sheltering in place, regardless of immigration or citizenship status, fearing the possibility of being stopped, potentially at gunpoint, and detained.
In Pictures: sculpture gets a leg up at Frieze Los Angeles
Mirrored art is notoriously attractive to fairgoers, but the Los Angeles-based artist Vincent Pocsik’s sculptural mirror is actually reaching out to passersby from the exterior wall of Nazarian Curcio’s stand. “Vincent’s work really bridges sculpture, furniture design and architecture,” says Aryn Foland, a director at the gallery.
‘I rely heavily on instinct’: entertainment mogul Hassan Smith on the art he collects and why
A longtime entertainment-industry executive, Hassan Smith is also a passionate collector and a regular at exhibitions in his hometown of Atlanta, as well as in Los Angeles and beyond. In addition to working as a manager for the singer John Legend, he serves on the advisory board for the Atlanta Art Fair.
Patrick Martinez’s anti-Ice neons greet Frieze LA visitors
At the height of protests against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids in Los Angeles last year, the local artist Patrick Martinez turned some of his neon sculptures—works riffing on the iconography of the city’s storefront signage, but with pointed political messaging—into protest placards and lawn signs. Now, six of his neon pieces are stationed at the entrance to Frieze Los Angeles, brightly and boldly proclaiming phrases including “Deport Ice” and “Nobody is illegal”.
Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles acquires Kara Walker sculpture made from dissected Confederate monument
The Museum of Contemporary Art (Moca) in Los Angeles has acquired Unmanned Drone (2023), a towering bronze sculpture the US artist Kara Walker made by dissecting and reassembling a decommissioned statue of the Confederate general Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson. The 1921 monument, by Charles Keck, was one of two Confederate statues in Charlottesville, Virginia, that were dismantled following the “Unite the Right” rally of white nationalists in 2017.
Plan for Centre Pompidou in New Jersey is ‘dead’, local official says
A planned outpost of the Centre Pompidou in Jersey City, New Jersey, is “dead”, according to the city’s new mayor. Asked about the project during a recent press conference, mayor James Solomon said: “We will not be doing Pompidou, to be clear. It is dead.” According to NJ.com , the comments came after Solomon revealed that Jersey City—the second-largest municipality in New Jersey after Newark, and situated just across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan—has a $255m deficit.
Queens Museum picks Debra Wimpfheimer as next executive director
As its current leader, Sally Tallant, prepares to move across the pond, the Queens Museum has selected her deputy director, Debra Wimpfheimer, to be its next executive director. The museum’s board of trustees announced Wimpfheimer’s promotion on Wednesday (11 February), with board chair Paula Kirby praising Wimpfheimer for “her experience and deep-rooted connection to Queens”.
67 galleries will once again take over the Shed for Frieze New York
This spring the Frieze New York fair will return to Manhattan’s West Side for its sixth edition at the Shed, which as last year will feature 67 participating galleries. It will be the first edition of Frieze’s Big Apple expo since the media and events company was acquired by Ari Emanuel’s company Mari last autumn.
At Mexico City’s Material and Salón Acme fairs, artists find hope in nature
Mexico City Art Week’s foremost satellite fairs, Salón Acme and Feria Material , attracted thronging crowds of collectors, curators and art-curious visitors during their respective VIP previews on Thursday (5 February).
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