In the late 1970s, Herbert Zapp, an executive board member of Deutsche Bank, then headquartered in Düsseldorf, West Germany, fell in with the maverick artist and teacher Josef Beuys. Beuys was in the midst of creating his seminal installation “Das Kapital: 1970-1977” for the 1980 Venice Biennale, articulating his belief that art, as an expression of human creativity, is the true capital.
Art News
There's no doubt that the statues by Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini were markedly sensual, which might seem paradoxical in the era of the Counter-Reformation and for an artist whose main patrons were part of the ecclesiastical aristocracy.
“Fridamania” is reaching new heights as museums, opera houses, and cinemas across continents celebrate the enduring legacy of Frida Kahlo in 2026. This collective reckoning with her highly curated self-image and body of work comes at a time when many are searching for personal meaning and unity in an age of simultaneous hyper-connectedness and geopolitical division.
Although museums have long housed clothing in “costume institutes” removed from their painting and sculpture galleries, a series of exhibitions and events is collapsing the distance between fashion and art this spring.
Attention to detail, subtle shifts of perspective, angles of surface, and objects overlapping or jutted up against one another; Giorgio Morandi’s sheer inventiveness with ordinary objects is distinctive.
The allegorical manifestation of "the four continents" is a visual staple of Western art from the colonial period and the 18th century in particular. Used to uphold the idea of European superiority and justify colonialism itself, the iconography associated with each continent is deeply rooted in racism.
A quiet ceremony at the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa marked a turning point in international cultural property law in recent weeks.
Nestled in the sagebrush-dusted mountains of northern New Mexico, more than 5,000 feet above sea level, is a small, quaint city constructed mainly of adobe and dating back to 1607 that just happens to be one of the world’s biggest and most vibrant art centers. Italy has a term for its urban cultural treasures—città d’arte, or art city.
The 82nd edition of the Whitney Biennial opened to the public on March 8, 2026. Curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, Sawyer comes to the Whitney after several years at the Brooklyn Museum, and Guerrero took on her role in 2022—the first Latina to co-curate the Biennial. With press and VIP previews starting as early as March 3, the arts media was flooded with wildly varied opinions on this iteration, most leaning towards the negative.
From the moment Pablo Picasso finished painting Guernica in 1937 for the World’s Fair as a response to the German and Italian bombing of Gernika, the over-25-foot canvas has functioned as both an artwork and an argument.
