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Monuments

Tearing down troubling statues is not lying about our history—it is removing impediments to truth

The UK communities secretary Robert Jenrick's plans to prevent the removal of controversial monuments reveals his inability to view the past as shifting and complex

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Museums

Could 2021 be the year of the African museum?

While the West continues to grapple with its colonial past, institutions from Togo to Cairo are creating more expansive models to celebrate art

Comment
Art market

How will US money laundering crackdown actually impact the art market? A lawyer explains

Congress is increasing its regulation of antiquities trade and while its powers are limited for now, change will come so the art industry must prepare

Comment
Art market

A Covid-19 silver lining? Let’s not return to family-unfriendly art business as usual

The industry could work better for mothers and fathers if it doesn’t go back to the out-of-hours, out-of-town way things were

Comment
Diary of an art historian

Auction houses have finally entered the Amazon age—and I’m addicted

I thought I’d kicked my online art and antiques buying habit but too much lockdown screen time has been my undoing

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Covid-19

As 2021 beckons.... I crave new art in the new year more than ever

With talk of vaccines dominating the airwaves, a return to regular contact with the latest works and upcoming artists may be on the horizon

Comment
Covid-19

'Museums had better not be planning for a return to the status quo'

If institutions keep admission limits in place, they’ll come out of the coronavirus crisis in better health, says art critic Blake Gopnik

Comment
The Year in Review 2020

Art could have dwindled into insignificance in the upheaval of this year—instead it endured

Through the major shifts and moments of victory, art has proved itself to be cathartic, resistant and powerful

Comment
Art market

How art world leaders can embrace new money laundering regulations and create a 'think risk' culture

Punishment for the new rules now falls on the art market's top dogs, says Sotheby’s founding global compliance director Rena Neville

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Museums & Heritage

California needs a plan to restart the arts

There is not a person in the arts who wants to open until it is safe to do so, but we cannot even prepare to start without state guidelines

Comment
Art Market Eye

Asian art market flies in the face of coronavirus

Why are Asians in hot pursuit of art, and what are they buying?

Comment
Museums

Gabrielie Finaldi: 'What is the National Gallery if you can’t visit and you can’t see the pictures?'

Museums have a responsibility to the people to protect and share the collection, says the London museum's director

Comment
Humboldt Forum

'Humboldt Forum must have a clear policy that only objects of proper provenance can be used'

The question of restitution as well as a new order of north-south relations should be top of the agenda, says George Abungu an international adviser to the project

Comment
Art market

The art trade benefits from the UK's low import duty. What will happen to it after Brexit?

As talks with the EU resume to reach a last-ditch trade deal, the lawyer Louise Williamson looks at what UK import rules might look like after 1 January

Comment
Art market

Provenance: the Trojan horse that can make or break a work of art

The who, where and when of ownership can lead on to scholarly, ethical, legal and existential issues

Comment
Museums

A new kind of museum is emerging—here's what the future holds

International museum leaders are confronting manifold challenges in the wake of Covid-19 and innovating in six principal ways, writes András Szántó

Comment
Art Market Eye

The turn of the screw: will tighter regulations impact the art market?

Often described as totally unregulated, the art trade is facing more stringent rules

Comment
Art market

Pastures new: why some top gallery staff are moving on from longtime jobs

Without art fairs and hectic travel, the pandemic has transformed the way most of us work—and some are branching out rather than returning to their old lifestyle

Comment
Cultural heritage

Finally, rebel experts come to the rescue of Unesco’s failing World Heritage programme

New organisation, Our World Heritage, is putting Unesco's feet to the fire

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Diary of an art historian

People see only 'silver tits' and 'bouffant pubes' now—but I predict Mary Wollstonecraft sculpture will become widely admired

One of the iron rules of art history is that the more derided a work of art at first, the more celebrated it will become

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Heritage

Fifty years on, Unesco’s convention against illicit trafficking of cultural artefacts still shines bright

International treaty of 1970 has helped establish an ethical basis for the actions of law enforcement and museums

Comment
Diary of an art historian

Is the UK seeing the emergence of a ‘Godfather approach’ to arts funding?

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden has been ignoring the arm's length principle and offering museums unsolicited advice

Comment
Philip Guston

Philip Guston show: 2022 opening is welcome news but confusion still remains

The museums should make urgent use of the delay already caused by the pandemic rather than lurch towards lengthy postponement

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Artists

A message of hope from David Hockney for Lockdown 2: 'Remember, they can't cancel the autumn either'

UK’s leading artist sends two new images of hope

Comment
Saudi Arabia

Why culture is so important in the time of coronavirus

As Saudi Arabia prepares to host the G20 summit, the kingdom's culture minister argues that culture should be part of the agenda

Comment
Artists

Portrait of Tracey: how Emin's cancer diagnosis hasn't stopped her from being an artistic dynamo

With exhibitions at the Royal Academy and Xavier Hufkens, as well as her return to Margate, the artist is doing more in convalescence than most people manage in full health

Comment
Art Market Eye

A flood of art? The market issues around museum deaccessioning

A flurry of museum pieces is heading to auction, but will there be enough buyers for them?

Comment
Sackler family

Nan Goldin: We must stop the Sacklers’ imminent Justice Department immunity deal

The family behind Purdue Pharma is poised to buy their way out of liability once again

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Closures

'Another yawning gap': radical London Print Studio closes its doors

Art world pays tribute to vital public space that served community organisations as well as artists including Lucian Freud, Billy Childish and Shezad Dawood

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coronavirus

Exhibitions need a perfect storm to succeed—but shows opening during Covid-19 are getting a disappointing drizzle

With no group student visits, no art-world private view, and limits on public access, the buzz of new exhibitions has potentially been short-circuited

Comment
Deaccessioning

Baltimore Museum of Art curators respond to deaccessioning criticism

Equity and diversity make history fairer, more accurate, and more meaningful in the present, they say

Asma Naeem and

Comment
Heritage

Confronting the allure, and the dangers, of 'fake heritage'

Monetary gain is one reason people create counterfeit heritage—but political power, personal fame or the imposition of beliefs are equally compelling motivations

Comment
election 2020

Why vote? To protect those who cannot

The proverbial arc of history will not bend toward justice without our help

Sue Coe for

Comment
Diary of an art historian

I finally went to see some art—and caught Covid-19

A trip to the National Gallery was eerie and alien—although a newly restored Van Dyck painting briefly shook off my anxiety

Comment
Deaccessioning

‘Uniquely egregious’: The disturbing precedent of the Baltimore Museum of Art’s deaccessioning plan

Sale of three valuable paintings by Warhol, Still and Marden points to a thirst for a $65m windfall, with no curatorial rationale

Comment
Museums & Heritage

Visionary leaders, big business and the digital boom: 30 years that changed museums

On The Art Newspaper’s anniversary, Donatien Grau reflects on the radical expansion of museums' financial, political and cultural influence

Comment
Art market

Bubbles, sheikhs and the freeport frenzy: Georgina Adam reflects on 30 years of art market reporting

Our art market editor-at-large looks back on three decades of booming sales and soaring prices, from Middle Eastern emergence to the evolution of auction houses

Comment
 US politics

For the arts, there’s only one choice in this election

The Biden-Harris campaign has pledged funding and support for arts and culture as a key policy issue

Comment
Museums & Heritage

The only way is ethics: US museums should not neglect provenance research in the funding crisis

Ethical institutional practices such as staff equity and due diligence are essential investments, "not merely a luxury for flush times"

Comment
Deaccessioning

Done right, selling museum pieces can work—but probably not with Michelangelos

UK museums may deaccession collection objects with curatorial justification and transparency, but it cannot be treated as a quick financial fix

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Politics

Philip Guston drew Richard Nixon's face as a hairy scrotum and phallus—what would he make of President Trump?

The physiognomy of deviousness, greed, ruthless opportunism, risible self-importance and gobsmacking albeit garden variety stupidity provides artists of Guston’s bent and calibre with a virtually bottomless well of imagery

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Art market

Gatherings are taboo in the Covid-19 world, so where does that leave experiential art?

New venture Superblue aims to attract younger audiences by selling tickets for immersive events, but its model is at odds with a socially distanced society

Comment
Labour

Art unions need to agitate beyond worker contracts

The only way to change the exploitative culture and entrenched racism of art institutions is collectively, from the bottom up

Comment
Venice

How to save Venice: a five-point plan by a leading citizen

Polls show that Venetians are about to re-elect a populist mayor who promises to bring back all the tourists—but none of the other eight candidates has presented a realistic alternative

Comment
Banksy

Banksy’s activism is his greatest work

Funding a refugee rescue boat is just the latest in a long history of politically motivated acts

Comment
China

'We cannot build a truly globalised art world without China'

Artistic exchange has been vital to the mutual understanding between China and the West, says Karen Smith, the director of OCAT Contemporary Art Terminal, Xi’an, China

Comment
Funding

'Be commercially minded or lose future funding': UK government's threat puts museums in peril

In a letter leaked to The Art Newspaper, the culture minister Oliver Dowden tells directors they must raise their own funds during the pandemic—but how?

Comment
Cultural heritage

Why we should be concerned about President Erdogan turning museums into mosques

Hagia Sophia and the Chora Church will remain “open to all”, Turkish government promises—but restricted access may not be the primary worry

Comment
Artists

Remembering the beautiful melancholy of Matthew Wong

The astronomical increase in the value of works by the Canadian artist, who died by suicide last year, is driven by morose opportunism

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Diary of an art historian

National Trust restructuring plans are ‘one of the most damaging assaults on art historical expertise ever seen in the UK’

Job cuts and planned repurposing of country houses will lead to a corporatisation of the nation's heritage sites

Comment
coronavirus

Business can and should help the arts through this crisis

The pandemic has laid bare the betrayal of the cultural sector, but corporations and individuals can alleviate the hardship

Comment
Museums & Heritage

'Museums need to press the reset button and become more radical'

Directors and curators should consider this challenging moment as an opportunity diversify the stories they tell and the staff that tell them

Comment
Monuments

The problem with Marc Quinn's Black Lives Matter sculpture

Racism runs far deeper than representation, says the artist Thomas J. Price

Comment
Diary of an art historian

'When the politics change, so must the statues'

History can teach us a lot about how to—and how not to—deal with problematic historic monuments

Comment
Photography

Photographs are the monuments of our online visual culture

But which ones will ascend to a more permanent station in today’s social imagination?

Comment
Museums & Heritage

'If a person of African descent wants a career in the arts—well, good luck'

Only by looking backwards can we start to tackle inequality in the arts sector, says Gus Casely-Hayford, the director of V&A East

Comment
Art market

Can the art market be an ally in the fight for racial equality?

The industry remains subtly discriminatory and must abandon some obsolete ways if it is to truly change for the better

Comment
Art market

We need to talk about guarantees. And art loans

Dealers who finance deals by taking out loans against art may well find themselves in difficulty because of the Covid-19 pandemic

Comment
Art market

No rest for the frazzled for many in the art world

As galleries and auction houses slowly awaken from lockdown (some of them, at least), this summer will be one of work, not rest

Comment
Racial injustice

If we want more artists like Khadija Saye, we need to give young BAME people the help they need

Would-be artists from ethnic minorities have it harder than most—which is why a new programme will continue Saye’s inspiring work, says the artist Nicola Green

Comment
Museums & Heritage

US needs monuments celebrating African American history, not Confederate statues

Telling America’s overlooked stories is fundamental to building a true national identity, says preservationist Brent Leggs

Podcast

Art and social media: do museums need memes?

Plus, artist Rita Keegan on her postponed show and Julia Peyton-Jones on Leonardo. Produced in association with Christie's

Hosted by and . Produced by and David Clack

Comment
Museums & Heritage

Institutions need to follow artists’ lead to make a material impact on the world

Museums can learn a lot from artists like Mark Bradford, Shan Wallace and Rick Lowe about how to more effectively engage with their communities

and

Comment
Art market

What’s the ideal post-pandemic art market? One that's no longer a Disneyland for the rich

Capitalism has gobbled up the art world over the past decade—it is high time for a reset

Comment
coronavirus

Oxford Economics report: an emergency fund for the UK creative sector 'needs to come soon'

It is time for a Creative New Deal amid the coronavirus crisis, says Caroline Norbury the chief executive officer of the Creative Industries Federation

Comment
Funding

Museums will need ethical funders all the more after the coronavirus crisis

As institutions reopen their doors to a world that has changed significantly, public scrutiny of private money is not going away

Comment
Art market

Who are the art market's virtual winners?

As digital fatigue sets in, a little editing goes a long way with online viewing rooms—and sometimes a humble PDF with a few human touches makes a welcome break

Comment
Diary of an art historian

Museums are about to reopen—but should they?

Social distancing measures mean a lot of money will be spent on a small number of visitors, institutions should be focusing on their online presence instead

Comment
Museums

Eight ways museums could make the most of the coronavirus crisis

Failure to seize this opportunity to make changes would be a graver error than any breach of etiquette

Comment
colonialism

Edward Colston monument: 'UK must face the truth of what helped it become a mighty power'

Once it is fished out of the water in Bristol, the statue of slave trader Edward Colston should go in a museum. But what kind of a museum?, asks writer Bonnie Greer

Comment
Protest

Dread Scott: America God Damn

The multidisciplinary artist and social justice activist reflects on the recent protests in response to the killing of George Floyd and the history of racialised police violence in the US—and how change may finally be underway

Comment
Black Lives Matter

The Art Newspaper's statement on the Black Lives Matter movement

We will redouble our efforts to shine a light on prejudice, injustice, tokenism and hypocrisy, to call for real diversity in the workforce, including our own team of writers and staff

Comment
Art market

What sort of art will we want after the pandemic ends?

Performance out, domestically-sized painting in

Comment
Exhibitions

Must London always win? National Gallery of Scotland cancels Titian show for all the wrong reasons

By bowing out of the Renaissance blockbuster tour, the Edinburgh museum has not only let down the Scottish public but shown its priorities are misplaced

Comment
racism

The US has a big racism problem and the art world is not helping

A looted Kaws sculpture and museums' silence reveal a predatory not progressive industry as protests flare following the killing of George Floyd

Comment
Museums & Heritage

After Covid-19, museums need to plan ‘must see’ exhibitions instead of blockbusters

The Brooklyn Museum’s director of exhibitions explains how institutions can rethink their offerings going forward

Comment
coronavirus

Why I made a mountain of fortune cookies in my little London flat during lockdown—all in the name of art

Biscuit sculptures have sprung up worldwide as part of a global initiative to celebrate the late artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Comment
Museums & Heritage

Our mission is to be Miami’s art museum—that’s why we spent $145,000 to buy works from local galleries

Franklin Sirmans, the director of the Perez Art Museum Miami, explains the impetus behind the Collectors Council’s largest group acquisition ever

Comment
Sustainability

Art museums should use their endowments to help battle climate change

In April, Harvard University announced plans to realign its $40bn endowment to reflect “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050—other US institutions can do the same

Comment
Deaccessioning

Why the Association of Art Museum Directors’s move on deaccessioning matters so much

Decision to relax rules on selling art exposes chinks in a fortress

Mark S. Gold and Stefanie S. Jandl

Comment
Personal stories of coronavirus

After years of sanctions and political upheaval, the pandemic is a new hurdle for the fragile Iranian art scene

Pejman Foundation in Tehran opened a museum at the start of this year only for it to close soon after as coronavirus struck

Comment
Art market

Auctions are like dating: you can do it online, but sparks only fly in the flesh

The coronavirus lockdown is boosting lower level virtual sales, but only a major live auction will kick-start the top end of the art market and revalidate prices

Comment
coronavirus

Britain's young artists had a hard time before the pandemic. What will happen to them now?

Inequality is rife in British society, not least in the arts, where decades of ‘class-cleansing’ policies have made it harder than ever to be an artist and designer

Comment
Art law

Selling art online? Here are the legal pitfalls to avoid

Lawyer Petra Warrington on how to protect your business if you are holding online auctions, exhibiting and selling works on Instagram, or entering into sale contracts by email

Petra Warrington

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Diary of an art historian

'Being an art historian now is easier and more productive than it’s ever been'

Publishers and libraries are extending their online access to help art historians put their period of enforced seclusion to good use

Comment
coronavirus

When this is all over we must reimagine the infrastructure of the arts

Our enforced isolation during the coronavirus crisis gives us time to think about the role of culture in the public realm

Comment
Biennials & festivals

Why we cancelled the 2020 FotoFocus Biennial and dispersed its $800,000 budget as arts grants

As the coronavirus pandemic raised concerns about their 10th anniversary event plans, the leaders of the Cincinnati festival explain why they decided to support the local arts community instead

Mary Ellen Goeke and Kevin Moore

Comment
Art Market Eye

Auctions: what will change, post-Covid-19?

In the era of social distancing, auctioneers may have to conduct sales to an empty room

Comment
Michael Craig Martin

'Politicians have failed us': Michael Craig-Martin's thoughts from isolation

The great plagues and wars of the past were followed by dramatic changes in the arts—the same will happen again, says the conceptual artist

Comment
New Deal

UK artists deserve a New Deal

Instead of commissioning creatives to respond to the current crisis as if this were a war, the country should pump millions into community art projects

Comment
Museums

Greetings from a museum leaving lockdown: lessons from Beijing's UCCA Center for Contemporary Art

Philip Tinari, the director and CEO of the Chinese museum, shares what the institution has learned during closure and its future plans

Comment
Museums

Museums must adopt new models to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic

Institutions need visionary leaders to find ways to adapt to a dramatically altered culture

Susan Lubowsky Talbott

Comment
Art market

‘I’ve always been wary of big business’: Paula Cooper on weathering adversity and building better social systems

The veteran New York dealer shares her concerns about the current coronavirus crisis—and what the art world needs to stay focused on

Paula Cooper

Comment
Museums & Heritage

Notes from the lockdown: Making a situated museum in Queens

The director of the Queens Museum reflects on how the coronavirus pandemic may change how communities use public spaces, and how museums can help rebuild these communal experiences

Sally Tallant

Comment
A message from

A message from... Yayoi Kusama: 'Let us joyfully sing this song of a splendid future'

Japan's beloved artist has penned a poem of hope for the world

Yayoi Kusama

Comment
Personal stories of coronavirus

'We are all Surrealists now': how life with Leonora Carrington prepared me for coronavirus lockdown

Joanna Moorhead, the biographer and relative of the rediscovered Surrealist woman artist, talks about learning to adventure creatively from the confines of home

Comment
Religious art

Pope Francis, his crucifix and the Virgin Mary: miraculous or merely traditional?

Art history removes the numinous from art. At the Vatican’s Covid-19 blessing we saw it invoked again

Comment
Art crime

Don't let your guard down: three things you can do now to protect your art during the pandemic

With sparse personnel and visitors, some criminals will try to see if the “closed” sign actually means “open”, say K2 Intelligence FIN's art crime experts

and

Comment
coronavirus

Mourning a ‘golden' exhibition season curtailed by coronavirus

Major shows by male artists dominated the London museum landscape before the crisis, now women and non-binary artists are missing their turn

Comment
Economics

Don’t forget to support our artists, the chroniclers of such crisis

Suzy Delvalle, the president of Creative Capital, urges us all to help artists hurt by the coronavirus pandemic

Suzy Delvalle

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