Fashion has always sat uncomfortably in the great art institutions of the West, the question of whether it belonged under the same roof as masterworks and heroic marbles a subject of perennial debate. After all, these creations weren’t hung on a wall or put on a pedestal; they were (cue dismissive sniff) worn. They may…
The Venice Biennale, once said it wouldn’t welcome any artists with ties to Russia’s government as long as the country waged its “grievous” war in Ukraine. But on Tuesday, Russia was back in Venice at the art world’s most important event — the country’s latest attempt to normalize its standing on the world stage. It…
Like the rising sea levels that have periodically threatened to submerge this city, the 2026 Venice Biennale has experienced waves of uncertainty that have only grown in strength as the public opening of the world’s most prestigious international art exhibition nears on Saturday morning. Its curator, Koyo Kouoh, died last year at age 57, within…
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual spring exhibition staged by the Costume Institute, the mannequins ceased being simple mannequins some time ago. For 2025’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” artist Tanda Francis modeled the mannequins’ features after André Grenard Matswa, one of the original Sapeurs; and parts of “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” dispensed with silhouettes…
Over the next month, if you take a ferry from the center of Venice to the island of Giudecca and walk into a former 15th-century convent, you will find yourself figuratively plunging underwater. The haunting songs of humpback whales will flow around you. A fish will sing its evensong from the sea grass meadows of…
The bucolic landscape and cultural legacy of Italy have long inspired creativity, and with the grand ambitions of the 20th century, a handful of artists took that inspiration to monumental proportions. They fashioned metaphysical fairy-tale lands in the woods; buried an entire town in concrete; and even hollowed out a mountain. A visit to these…
Back when Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving global tour was announced last summer, a month before the album’s release itself, you’d be forgiven for thinking some of the venue choices were punchy. Prior to this run, Dean’s biggest show in the capital had been at London’s 3,500 capacity Eventim Apollo, and debut album Messy…
No one does high drama — the agony and the ecstasy, the deepest blacks and brightest whites, the crispest lines and most lucent objects — like the Spanish Catholic Baroque painters. There is a painting of Christ on the cross so exquisitely rendered, so realistically modeled in light and shade, it was said by an…
Yes, there will be the more predictable elements: a full-scale model of the Oval Office, videos of election nights and mannequins wearing the first lady’s dresses. But the Obama Presidential Center, which officially opens on the South Side of Chicago in June, will also have a feature rarely — if ever — prominent in past…
The artist Banksy appears to be taking credit for a large statue that was erected in London under the cover of darkness. It displays a man in a suit marching with a flag that billows onto his face, covering it entirely. The statue, interpreted by many observers as a comment on blind nationalism, depicts the…
