Art

On November 9, the MUSAC in León, Spain, will showcase Ai Weiwei: Don Quixote, one of his most ambitious projects. The exhibit spans 1,700 square meters and features 41 monumental works created over the past 20 years. Known for blending art and political activism, Ai Weiwei's show will be the first to extensively highlight his LEGO brick paintings. He likens LEGO to ancient mosaics, textiles, and Song Dynasty printing, citing its timelessness. A standout piece is La Commedia Umana, an eight-meter-tall chandelier made of 2,000 black Murano glass pieces, representing the cycle of life and death. This work took four years to create. The exhibition delves into Ai Weiwei’s central themes, touching on the refugee crisis, international politics, and the impact of AI on humanity. Curated by Álvaro...

British-Gujarati artist Hetain Patel is inviting the public to explore The Hobby Cave, an exhibition celebrating diverse hobbies across the United Kingdom. Open from 18 July to 20 October 2024 at Grants in Croydon, the event showcases creative passions of everyday individuals.Earlier this year, Patel called for hobbyists nationwide to share their pursuits, resulting in a display of cosplay costumes, handmade puppets, mosaics, pottery, My Little Pony collections, origami, miniature models, chainmail jewelry, and furniture from broken skateboards, as reported by Artnet.At the exhibition's center is a film by Patel, produced with high-end advertising aesthetics to highlight the creativity on display. Inspired by his own artistic journey, Patel collaborated with Mariam Zulfiqar from Artangel ...

Villa Navarra is presenting Faith by American artist Matt McCormick, running from July 13 to October 6, 2024 in Le Muy, France. For this presentation, McCormick dives deep into the digital age, revealing how algorithms subtly yet powerfully shape our beliefs and attitudes.In this new body of work McCormick challenges the digital age where conspiracy theories thrive yet somehow provide a semblance of order amid chaos. He recollects modern conspiracy theorists whom navigate the internet, crafting stories to make sense of their anxieties. McCormick's work captures these complex narratives, blending myth and reality, reflecting our current moment where the American dream's promise is both challenged and redefined.“In today’s America, we’re witnessing a descent into the rabbit hole of misinform...

The first ever Stegosaurus fossil just hit auction and it fetched a whopping $44.6m USD when it sold at Sotheby's New York — the largest sum paid for a dinosaur skeleton in history. The fossil was excavated in 2022 in Moffatt County, Colorado, widely described as Dinosaur National Monument, as the region is a goldmine for paleontologists. "Apex", as the Stegosaurus has been referred to as, shattered both its initial estimate of roughly $6m USD, and broke the record set by Stan, a well-preserved T-Rex fossil that sold in 2020 for $31.8m USD. What a gift it must have been for Jason Cooper, who discovered the specimen on his 45th birthday. The paleontologist worked closely with Sotheby's, which previously brought the first ever dinosaur fossil to auction in 1997, to document the entire proces...

There are few experiences that muster an equal level of excitement and angst as going to the airport. Unless you're spending thousands to fly business and indulge in a private lounge before take-off, then it's likely the latter experience will be more dominant. New York City's John F. Kennedy Airport, the sixth busiest in the US, will be funding an ambitious new art initiative to make traveling in-and-out of its terminals much more (aesthetically) pleasing. The $22m USD art initiative is part of the new Terminal 6 hitting JFK in 2026, which is estimated to cost $4.2b USD. Funded by JFK Millennium Partners, the same group that financed neighboring LaGuardia Airport's art transformation, the latest venture will include work from a mixture of 18 New York-born and international artists, includ...

Online Ceramics, a cult brand known for Grateful Dead bootleg tees turned philosophical art practice, is releasing its TRICKER’S CABIN: The Oral and Visual History of Online Ceramics today.Published by A24, this 348-page book as its name suggests, offers an oral and visual history of the brand. It features conversations with collaborators like John Mayer, Andy Cohen and Daniel Lopatin, a photographic timeline of their archive and insights into the founders' personal interests.The book also explores Online Ceramics' unique aesthetic, which combines bootleg tradition with punk aesthetics and pop culture references. It details their collaborations with A24, starting with bootleg Hereditary shirts that led to an official partnership. David Kordansky, who wrote the introduction, describes their...

Theft has become a recurring theme surrounding the British Museum, as the 270-year-old institution has been embroiled in a number of scandals in recent years. To start, there are longstanding repatriation efforts targeting the museum for the return of artifacts that have allegedly been looted centuries earlier, from the Benin Bronzes to the Parthenon Marbles. Just as notable is the case of Peter Higgs, the former curator of Greco-Roman art, who was caught stealing over 1,800 artifacts from the museum's collection and selling them on the black market and e-commerce sites, such as eBay. To add to this growing list, The Art Newspaper reported that Brazilian artist Ilê Sartuzi stole a historic coin minted in 1665 and later dropped it in the museum's donation box in a somewhat Oceans 12-like mo...

Ma Yasong’s MAD may be known for its otherworldly architecture, but the global design practice has always had a pulse in contemporary art. For this year’s Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, MAD has unveiled “Ephemeral Bubble,” a large-scale biomorphic installation that’s taken home in the Japanese countryside.Its ambiguous appearance looks like a bubble, a blob of smoke, a bedside lamp while also being reminiscent of ethereal creatures from a Studio Ghibli film. According to MAD, the inspiration behind the “Ephemeral Bubble” is nature. Its form, soft yet fluid, evokes a conversation with its historical and rustic surroundings.The work is attached to a century-old house in Murono Village, tucked away in Tokamachi, a city known for its mythical allure and beguiling natural beauty. Before one ente...

The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum has announced a new exhibition, Against Time: The Noguchi Museum 40th Anniversary Reinstallation, which will be on view from August 28, 2024, to September 14, 2025. Curated by Matthew Kirsch, the showcase will feature a specific selection of Noguchi's sculptures and project models from the museum's permanent collection ahead of its 40th anniversary in 2025.The exhibition is based on The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1987), the catalog that documented all of the museum's works instead of traditional wall labels. Notably, the binding was used to mark the museum's permanent collection following Noguchi's death in December 1988.The original installation housed a number of breakthrough pieces from before and after No...

From July 1 to September 30 2024, acclaimed street artist Rone is presenting his first major exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) in the historical Centenary Galleries. Titled "TIME • RONE", the experience aims to transport visitors to a forgotten era of Australian history. In “TIME • RONE”, Rone’s signature haunting murals will be spread across 12 rooms on both floors of the Centenary Galleries - the first time these historic spaces have been fully opened to the public in nearly 20 years. Visitors will be enveloped in Rone's distinctive visual style, with the murals serving as the centerpiece of the immersive art experience. The exhibition will also offer a multi-sensory journey, through a blend of art, food, and atmosphere that is intended to bring the visitor to the...

As Copa America and the EUROS draw to a close, the sports world now descends on Paris for the Olympic Games. A number of galleries across the French capital have joined in on the festivities, from Gagosian's spotlight on the competition's art history to a new exhibition fielded by Almine Rech.Housed at Almine Rech's rue de Turenne flagship, Sport and Beyond comprises of new and existing works by American artists Jeff Koons, Laurie Simmons and Hank Willis Thomas. Known best for his shiny balloon sculptures, Jeff Koons presents a new entry in his Gazing Balls series, the latest work featuring a reclining male nude balancing 11 chromatic orbs that rest over and around the figure's body. Inspired by the Borghese Gladiator (110 BCE) sculpture in the Louvre museum, Koons conflates past and prese...

Keith Haring's energetic aesthetic is getting an extra pop through a new book published by Poposition Press. The publication showcases some of the artist's most famous works as three-dimensional pop-up spreads that are sourced from the Keith Haring Foundation and brought to life by award-winning illustrator and paper expert Simon Arizpe. Poposition Press founder Rosston Meyer was astonished at the level of access he was given when working with the artist's foundation and chose to spotlight Haring's Sculptures, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Pop Shop Grid, Dog, Silence=Death and Houston Street Mural. "We had access to the archives, as well as anything we could find online or in books," Rosston told Creative Boom. "It was quite overwhelming at first with such a huge amount of work to choos...