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Articles by Tessa Solomon
Guggenheim and Brooklyn Museum Unions Ratify New Contracts, Averting Strikes
Unionized staff at four of New York’s prominent cultural institutions—the Brooklyn Museum, Guggenheim Museum, the Jewish Museum, and the American Folk Art Museum, and (AFAM)—have ratified new contracts, UAW Local 2110 announced today. The Brooklyn Museum and AFAM finalized four-year contracts this week, while the Guggenheim and Jewish Museum unions ratified their agreements in September. ARTnews has contacted the museums for comment.
After Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Opening, Stephanie Rosenthal Will Join Rotterdam Museum as Artistic Director
Stephanie Rosenthal, the current director of Gropius Bau, has been named artistic director of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. She will take up the post in September 2027. In May, Rosenthal was appointed project director of the Guggenheim’s Abu Dhabi satellite, overseeing the museum’s final preparations after two decades in development. The museum is scheduled to open to the public in December, when Valerie Hillings will assume her role as its inaugural director.
Nicole Eisenman talks fallout from public support of Palestine
Earlier this year, the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired The Auction (2024–25), a painting by artist Nicole Eisenman. Like much of Eisenman's oeuvre, it's a fanciful work of figuration, featuring a feverish bidding war overseen by a fruit-headed, black-robed judge. While Eisenman's works are funny at first glance, a nuanced narrative, interweaving the personal and political, can usually be teased out of them.
Whitney Union Sets Strike Date Days Before Major Roy Lichtenstein Show
Unionized staff at the Whitney Museum of Art will begin striking on Monday, October 5, if they cannot reach a contract agreement with the museum, Local 2110 UAW announced today. Workers at the Whitney Museum approved strike action earlier this month in a milestone vote held in conjunction with unions at the Brooklyn Museum and American Folk Art Museum.
Ann Temkin to Step Down as MoMA’s Chief Painting and Sculpture Curator After 18 Years
Ann Temkin, the Museum of Modern Art’s chief curator of painting and sculpture for 18 years, will retire from the role in January 2027, the museum announced Monday. She will, however, continue to shape the New York institution’s programming, taking on a newly created position as an adviser to the director, Christophe Cherix, ahead of the museum’s centennial in 2029.
Ai Weiwei Exhibits 500 Cast-Iron Combat Helmets at Australia Museum
Ai Weiwei on Friday unveiled his commission for the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney: 500 cast-iron combat helmets arranged in ten orderly lines on the city’s busiest green space, Tallawoladah Lawn. The 131-foot-long installation, titled Mushrooms, recalls various 20th-century combat helmets, complete with inner padding. The installation is arranged on an elevated platform split by a pedestrian walkway, making the work difficult for visitors to the famous harbor to miss.
New York Investigators Return 36 Artifacts to Syria, Including Relief Looted from Palmyra
Thirty-six antiquities, collectively valued at more than $5 million, including a stone relief looted from the ancient site of Palmyra, have been retuned to Syria, New York investigators announced on Wednesday.
At Spring/Break’s First Edition in the Old CBS Newsroom, (Almost) Everything Is Political
This weekend, for likely the last time, cameras are rolling at 555 West 57th Street. The longtime headquarters of CBS News’s most hallowed properties—60 Minutes and Inside Edition—was recently hollowed out in a Paramount acquisition that saw personalities and producers shuffled to a center across the street. So, perhaps fittingly, Spring/Break, New York’s most irreverent art fair, has taken residence.
See 10 Paintings from the Met’s Landmark Chang Dai-Chien Acquisition
In what will surely make for a survey to remember, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired 38 works by the revered Chinese ink painter Chang Dai-chien. The trove includes studies from Dai-chien’s time at Dunhuang, an ancient Buddhist temple complex on the edge of the Gobi Desert, in the 1940s, as well as works from the 1960s and beyond, when his delicate landscapes and still-life unraveled into radiant abstractions.
PR Firm Cultural Counsel to Restructure with Founder Adam Abdalla Transitioning to New Role
Cultural Counsel, an art publicity powerhouse since 2015 with a national reach that has counted top-flight museums, galleries, and foundations in its client list, is restructuring its operations, sources tell ARTnews—starting with leadership. Adam Abdalla, the firm’s founder and most visible figure, will transition to a new role, with senior vice president Marcella Zimmerman assuming public-facing affairs.
Brooklyn Museum, American Folk Art Museum, and Whitney Museum Unions Vote in Favor of Strikes
Unionized staff at three New York City cultural institutions—the Brooklyn Museum, the American Folk Art Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art—voted in favor of strike action if they do not receive satisfactory offers on their contracts, Local 2110 UAW announced today.
Federal Judge Again Rules Trump Cannot Add Name to Kennedy Center
A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts could not inscribe “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” on the venue’s facade, dealing another setback to the Trump-appointed Kennedy Center’s months-long campaign to memorialize the president somewhere on the institution’s premises. US District Judge Christopher R.
Prized Gertrude Abercrombie Painting, Priced at $30 at an Estate Sale, Heads to Auction for $250,000
Missing for decades, a Gertrude Abercrombie painting will find itself some collector’s prize this October at Freeman’s. Of the lots scheduled for Freeman’s postwar and contemporary art auction, Alderman Merriam’s Shells (1951), by the celebrated Chicagoan artist, surely has the best story. According to the house, the enigmatic still life of seashells scattered in a deep void was spotted this summer at a “picked-over” estate sale in Michigan.
Lawsuit Alleges Warhol Forgery Scheme Spanning Florida, Peru, and Philadelphia
Duped into buying more than $6.7 million worth of fake Andy Warhol paintings and prints, real estate investor Richard Perlman and his family have launched a multinational lawsuit against the players they say are complicit in the alleged scam.
Trump demands 'strange modernist' José de Rivera sculpture be replaced
President Donald Trump has released his latest list of demands for the Smithsonian Institution, beginning with the installation of a monumental statue of George Washington outside the National Museum of American History. In a flurry of Truth Social posts late Friday, Trump also called for an exhibition honoring the nation's first president to open imminently and run through February 22, 2032, the 300th anniversary of Washington's birth.
Trump Demands ‘Strange Modernist’ Sculpture Be Replaced by George Washington Statue
President Donald Trump has released his latest list of demands for the Smithsonian Institution, beginning with the installation of a monumental statue of George Washington outside the National Museum of American History. In a flurry of Truth Social posts late Friday, Trump also called for an exhibition honoring the nation’s first president to open imminently and run through February 22, 2032, the 300th anniversary of Washington’s birth.
Rabkin Foundation Names Eight Winners of Its 2026 Arts Journalism Grants
The Dorothea & Leo Rabkin Foundation in Portland, Maine, named eight recipients of its 2026 prize for visual arts journalists. The Rabkin Prize carries an unrestricted $50,000 purse, along with creative and intellectual recognition.
Amid clash with Trump, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch to retire
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III will retire at the end of this year, according to the Washington Post , amid a historic confrontation with the Trump administration over how the museum consortium historicize the United States.
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch to Retire as Trump Targets Museum Consortium
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III will retire at the end of this year, according to the Washington Post, amid a historic confrontation with the Trump administration over how the museum consortium historicize the United States.
Chinese Artists Officially Withdraw from Gwangju Biennale in Protest of ‘Taiwan Pavilion’
The Chinese artists set to exhibit at this year’s Gwangju Biennale officially withdrew today from the prestigious exhibition, which opens September 5.
Politics Is Personal in a Powerful Show of Protest Art at the Nasher Museum
“Just because an artist is not thinking directly about politics while making a work does not mean they are outside the political context,” said Xuxa Rodríguez, curator of “Turn the Volume Up!,” the newest exhibition at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art. The timely—or timeless—exhibition surveys art’s place in both the great and mundane moments of social justice.
David Zwirner Will Exhibit Yayoi Kusama’s Final Works Next Spring
Next April, New York will get one last glimpse into the elusive mind of Yayoi Kusama. David Zwirner announced today an exhibition of work from the final decade of Kusama’s life at its Tribeca space—a period the dealer described to The New York Times as “arguably […] the most extraordinary and successful decade of her career.” Kusama died on August 14 in Tokyo at age 97, leaving behind an iconic oeuvre of abstractions and an art world remade by the rise of her global brand.
China Pulls Artists from Gwangju Biennale as ‘Taiwan Pavilion’ Moves Forward
The Chinese ambassador to South Korea has ordered China’s artists to withdraw from the 16th Gwangju Biennale, which opens September 5, in protest of the Gwangju Biennial Foundation allowing Taiwanese exhibitors to participate under the name “Taiwan,” South Korean media reported today.
Kennedy Board Says It Will Delay Adding Trump’s Name to the Center by One Month
The Kennedy Center board told a federal judge on Thursday that it will halt efforts to add President Trump’s name to the building until at least October 8, delaying its plans by a month. The announcement followed an emergency court hearing prompted by a Justice Department filing this week warning that the Kennedy Center could be demolished and potentially replaced with an outdoor amphitheater if the board is not allowed to close the building for two years for repairs.
Avant-Garde Artist Yayoi Kusama Has Died at 97 Original
Yayoi Kusama, whose obsessive repetitions of dots and nets became a means of expressing infinity, leaving an indelible mark on contemporary art worldwide, died on August 14 of multiple organ failure at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 97. Her death was reported on Thursday by Kyodo News and later confirmed by her David Zwirner Gallery, her longtime representation.
Yayoi Kusama dead: Avant-garde artist who pursued infinity dies at 97
Yayoi Kusama, whose obsessive repetitions of dots and nets became a means of expressing infinity, leaving an indelible mark on contemporary art worldwide, died on August 14 of multiple organ failure at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 97. Her death was reported on August 27 by Kyodo News and confirmed today by her David Zwirner Gallery, her longtime representation.
Artist Gao Zhen Receives Three-Year Prison Sentence for ‘Slandering China’s Heroes’
Artist Gao Zhen, who was detained in China in 2024 on “suspicion of slandering China’s heroes and martyrs” over a satirical sculpture of Mao Zedong, has been sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison, rights groups say. The BBC reported yesterday that a court in Hebei province ruled on Tuesday that Gao Zhen’s artwork “infringes upon the hero’s reputation and harms the public interest.” The 70-year-old artist is known for a dissident oeuvre that targets the Chinese Communist Party.
Craig Jun Li’s Art of Show-and-Tell
“What I do is like a show-and-tell,” Craig Jun Li explained when we spoke, referring to his displays of found objects and archival material—faded photographs, old letters, buttons. Such ephemera made up his January solo exhibition at Chapter NY. “I want to show the effect these materials have had on me,” he added. Yet the show’s title suggests deeper desires: “I Want to Love with No Fear.” “I blocked the radiators,” he said, explaining a pedestal he built to enclose them.
Yayoi Kusama, Avant-Garde Artist Who Pursued Infinity, Has Died at 97 Original
Yayoi Kusama, whose obsessive repetitions of dots and nets became a means of expressing infinity, leaving an indelible mark on contemporary art worldwide, died on August 14 of multiple organ failure at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 97. Her death was reported on Thursday by Kyodo News and later confirmed by her David Zwirner Gallery, her longtime representation.
LACMA Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Data Breach of Employee, Visitor Information
A former employee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has filed a class action complaint against the institution over a 2025 data breach that he claims has compromised sensitive visitor and employee information, including Social Security numbers. The complaint accuses LACMA of acting negligently by waiting nearly a year to inform its staff of the breach and seeks unspecified damages, as well as a court-ordered assurance of stronger security measures.
Samia Halaby Remembers Sliman Mansour: ‘A Giant in the History of Art’
Sliman Mansour, an artist and educator who helped create the visual language of Palestinian perseverance, died on Monday in Jerusalem at 79. An outpouring of gratitude and grief has followed in the wake of his death from artists and arts professionals within the Arab art community, and beyond, many of whom counted Mansour as both an inspiration and a friend. Below, Samia Halaby, another pioneering Palestinian painter, reflects on Mansour’s life and legacy.
Gwangju Biennale Restores ‘Taiwan Pavilion’ Amid Diplomatic Crisis and Censorship Claims
Ten days into a deepening diplomacy dispute between Taiwan and South Korea’s Gwangju Biennale over allegations of censorship, the Gwangju Biennale Foundation (GBF) has agreed that a satellite exhibition at its September edition can open as the “Taiwan Pavilion.” The decision follows a series of conflicting accounts between the two parties over the exhibition’s renaming under the banner of its commissioning institution, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA), and accusations from...
Sliman Mansour, Towering Painter of Palestinian Perseverance, Has Died at 79
Artist Sliman Mansour (1947-2026). Instagram/Sliman Mansour, the Palestine Museum. Sliman Mansour, a pivotal painter in contemporary Arab art history, with an oeuvre synonymous with the struggle for Palestinian statehood, has died at 79. The news was announced yesterday by Mansour’s family, who had previously shared that he was in critical condition. “The final chapter has been written,” the Mansour family said on Instagram.
Eight Years After Its Theft, Picasso Etching Discovered Hanging in Milwaukee Apartment
A stolen Pablo Picasso etching has been returned to a Milwaukee art dealer eight years after its theft, the Associated Press reported. The artwork is one of 30 known Torero prints by Pablo Picasso dated to 1949, and belonged to Bill DeLind of DeLind Fine Art Appraisals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At the time of its theft in 2018, it was valued between $35,000 and $50,000. Today, it likely meets the high estimate, according to the report.
Emergency Appeal Asks Federal Court to Keep Trump’s Name Off Kennedy Center
A federal court received an emergency appeal Thursday seeking to block the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from restoring President Donald Trump’s name to the building. The Kennedy Center board, led by Trump and largely composed of his allies, voted earlier this month to engrave the president’s name beneath the signage on the venue’s facade, which would read: “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J.
After Leadership Shakeup, Telfair Museums Names Caitlín Doherty as Next Director
The Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, has announced that Caitlín Doherty as its new executive director. She will assume the post in October. Doherty is the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville in Florida. She joined the institution joined the instiuttion in 2017, following a tenure as chief curator at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum in Michigan.
Renaissance Masterpieces Were Stolen From a Sicilian Museum During a National Holiday Original
Thieves have dealt a Sicilian museum a harrowing loss, stealing three of the five surviving devotional panels painted by Renaissance master Antonello da Messina. The assailants broke into the Regional Museum of Messina, also known as MuMem, on Saturday evening, as the port city celebrated the Ferragosto national holiday.
Mafia Involvement Feared in Heist of Renaissance Paintings in Sicily
The theft of four paintings by Renaissance master Antonello da Messina from a Sicilian museum has prompted suspicions of mafia involvement, given the startling speed and ease of the high-stakes crime, Italian authorities said on Monday.
Renaissance Masterpieces Stolen from Sicilian Museum During National Holiday
Thieves have dealt a Sicilian museum a harrowing loss, stealing three of the five surviving devotional panels painted by Renaissance master Antonello da Messina. The assailants broke into the Regional Museum of Messina, also known as MuMem, on Saturday evening, as the port city celebrated the Ferragosto national holiday.
Kit Fitzgerald, Pioneering Video Artist With a Painter’s Sensibility, Has Died at 73
Kit Fitzgerald, a visionary video artist with a sense for the music and motion of painting, died on August 3 at 73. The news was announced by her husband and longtime creative partner, Peter Gordon, on Instagram.
Defying Federal Judge, Kennedy Center Board Votes to Close, Inscribe Trump’s Name on Building
The board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted Thursday to close the center for renovations for a second time, while keeping a smaller, separate theater open. This week’s vote marked a dramatic escalation in the legal battle over the historic center: the Trump-allied board also moved to inscribe the president’s name beneath the signage—a direct rebuke of a May federal court order that had blocked both the closure and a name change.
San Diego Museum of Art Lays Off 11 Employees, Citing ‘The Current Landscape’
The San Diego Museum of Art laid off 11 employees on Wednesday, August 5, citing “rising operational costs,” the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. The layoffs affected departments across the museum, including programs, development, and exhibitions, and leave the total staff count at 118. The news comes six months after the Balboa Park museum marked its 100th anniversary and amid a major renovation of its West Wing.
Sharjah is Set for the Region’s First Contemporary Craft Museum
The United Arab Emirates landscape is expanding once again, with Sharjah set for the region’s first contemporary crafts museum. The Irthi Museum will open in Sharjah’s Creative Quarter sometime in 2029 and house a permanent collection of contemporary crafts from across the Gulf, the Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council announced.
Former National Gallery Executive Accuses Institution of ‘Soft Censorship’ After DOGE Visit Original
A former senior executive of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has accused the institution of “soft censorship” for relocating, without explanation, a symposium inspired by its exhibition on race in American and Mexican art last year. The symposium, titled “Color Lines Across the United States and Mexico,” was originally scheduled for May 2025 at the museum’s renowned Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA).
Appeals Court Says Trump Lacks Authority to Build White House Ballroom
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump lacks the authority to build a $400 million ballroom at the White House without congressional approval. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with historic preservationists who sued to halt construction of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the site where the White House’s East Wing stood before its demolition last fall.
7 Smithsonian Museums Abruptly Closed Over Mechanical Issue
WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 20: The entrance to the Smithonian National Musuem of African Art located along the Nationa Mall is seen on August 20, 2025, in Washington, DC. The museum is one of 19 Smithsonian Institute museums in Washington, DC, and New York, NY. (Photo by J. David Ake/Getty Images) Getty Images The Smithsonian Institution on Thursday closed seven buildings on the National Mall, citing a failure of the temperature-control system.
The 10 Most Expensive Alberto Giacometti Works Ever Sold at Auction
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 23: A person takes a picture of Alberto Giacometti's Grande femme I during a press preview of the upcoming Contemporary Art Evening Auction at Sotheby's on October 23, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images) Getty Images Coarse skin, matchstick-thin, and oozing existential dread—the signature of Alberto Giacometti is unmistakable.
Guggenheim Veteran Valerie Hillings Tapped as Inaugural Director of Abu Dhabi Branch
The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi took another significant step toward its December 11 opening, naming Valerie Hillings as the institution’s inaugural director. In choosing Hillings, the Guggenheim tapped a trusted name for the high-profile appointment. She spent five years on the Guggenheim’s staff in New York before joining the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project in 2008 as curator and associate director of curatorial affairs.
White House Proposes Smallest Smithsonian Budget in Years and Cutting Full-Time Staff by 6 Percent
The Trump administration has proposed the Smithsonian Institution’s leanest budget in nearly a decade, along with staff reductions, as its campaign against the museum over its ideological direction takes a new turn. For fiscal year 2027, the White House has proposed giving the Smithsonian $961.3 million in federal funding, roughly an 11 precent cut from the $1.08 billion Congress provided to it fiscal year 2026 and the institution’s lowest proposed funding level since at least 2020.
Citing Censorship, Artist Emma Shapiro Launches Legal Challenge to Restore Instagram Account
On December 8, 2025, Instagram permanently terminated the account @nipeople, a project by artist, journalist, and activist Emma Shapiro, instantly erasing years of work and sparking a legal debate over digital freedom. The Instagram account was part of Exposure Therapy, a project begun in 2017 that aims to challenge gender-based discrimination by highlighting the ways society’s sexualization of female-presenting bodies is reflected in various laws.
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