Public art

Shepard Fairey murals of Kamala Harris go up in battleground states as early voting begins in US presidential election

One of the murals, in Durham, North Carolina, brought together Fairey, cultural organiser Wyatt Closs, gallery owner Linda Shropshire and the local community

Court pauses eviction of popular New York sculpture garden

Elizabeth Street Garden can stay open for two more weeks as volunteers try to prevent its demolition

Artist-designed billboards opposing Donald Trump and supporting Kamala Harris go up in battleground states

The campaign, organised by the non-profit People For the American Way, includes images by Carrie Mae Weems, Deborah Kass, Alyson Shotz, Christine Sun Kim, Hank Willis Thomas and others

Filmsreview

New Niki de Saint Phalle documentary chronicles her personal struggles and aesthetic triumphs

Michiko Matsumoto’s film “Viva Niki”, which recently premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival, also attests to the artist’s enduring popularity in Japan

Avoiding the mistakes of the past: symbolic sculptures by Indigenous artists unveiled at site of historic Canadian battlefield

The permanent sculptures by Chief 7IDANsuu James Hart and Wendat Nation artist Ludovic Boney were unveiled in Québec City’s Cap Diamant on Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

New York arts non-profit launches three-year programme celebrating the city’s Latinx community

The Clemente’s ambitious ‘Historias’ project officially begins this weekend with a block party on the Lower East Side

Olafur Eliasson will blur advertising billboards in London, Seoul, New York and Berlin

The Danish-Icelandic artist is unveiling a series of out-of-focus videos, Lifeworld, on 1 October

Cree artist Kent Monkman commissioned to create large outdoor work for new Toronto art trail

The Lassonde Art Trail will launch along the city’s waterfront in 2026

Los Angeles authorities criticised for art project to ‘beautify’ areas after unhoused people living in vehicles moved

In a city facing an acute housing crisis, and where around 14,000 people live in their vehicles, the initiative sparked a swift backlash from artists and housing advocates

Diaryblog

Subversive art hidden in plain sight in Times Square

Patrick Amadon slipped a message about Gaza into his New York billboard

‘Symbols of innocence and comfort’: Qatar art installation brings together 15,000 teddy bears in tribute to children killed in Gaza

The work, by the Lebanese artist Bachir Mohamad, was inspired by footage of a child in Gaza crying while holding a cuddly toy

Glenn Ligon in Cambridge, new Gauguin biography, Teresa Margolles’s Fourth Plinth commission — podcast

The American artist on his interventions at the Fitzwilliam Museum, a chat about a new publication exploring Gauguin’s complex character, and the details on a new London sculpture paying tribute to trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming communities

Latest Fourth Plinth sculpture pays tribute to transgender communities

The work by Teresa Margolles is made up of casts of the faces of 726 trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people from the UK and Mexico

Public artcomment

Bizarre optics at Cai Guo-Qiang’s fiery kick-off event for Getty’s PST Art initiative

Fireworks by the Chinese artist ran counter to the point of many PST Art projects

Dulwich Picture Gallery makes first acquisition in 12 years—purchasing bronze installation for £176,500

The artists Rob and Nick Carter sold Bronze Oak Grove to the London institution for just the price of the materials they used to make it

Refik Anadol's AI tribute to Czech composer Antonín Dvořák takes the stage in Washington, DC

The work, on view this month at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Reach Plaza, is “not about replacing or erasing him, about remembering him”, Anadol says

Julie Mehretu creates towering glass mural for Obama Presidential Center in Chicago

The artist's 83ft-tall work, “Uprising of the Sun”, is the most prominent of many art commissions for the centre

Truck-based exhibition on bodily autonomy kicks off US tour in New York

The project “Body Freedom for Every(body)” will spend the next three months touring the country in a truck emblazoned with Barbara Kruger’s famous message: “Your Body is a Battleground”

High Line Art resurrecting commissioned billboard series with new Glenn Ligon work

An image of one of the artist's celebrated neon pieces will restart a rotating series of commissions for a Manhattan billboard at 18th Street near 10th Avenue

In Chicago for the Democratic National Convention, artist Autumn Breon's neon-pink vending machine proffers free self-care

Breon’s free installation is one of several activations coinciding with the convention in the city that are co-organised by For Freedoms, the artist-led civic engagement group

After decades of neglect, public Amelia Toledo sculpture in Rio will finally be restored

The giant rose-quartz work at a metro station in Copacabana will get a much-needed makeover

George Rickey sculpture partially collapses outside News Corp's New York headquarters

One of the work’s two hoop-like pendulums fell off outside the Manhattan offices of the Wall Street Journal publisher

Austin’s Blanton Museum reimagines its grounds as a place for a university campus, city and community

A recently completed $35m renovation led by Snøhetta seeks to seamlessly connect the museum to its surroundings

Florida man pleads guilty to bombing satirical statue of Lenin and Mao

A lawyer from Florida drove to San Antonio, Texas, in an apparent attempt to destroy a 21ft-tall sculpture critiquing the Chinese Communist Party

Booksreview

Although it is a ‘sumptuous’ tome, this survey of contemporary public art from around the world baffles at times

The self-proclaimed atlas gives voice to works from often overlooked global-majority cultures but tends to favour mainstream over more challenging works

Shahzia Sikander says she will not fix statue that was beheaded in Houston

In a Washington Post op-ed, the artist wrote she wants to leave the sculpture damaged to show the “fissures in our country”

Giant pigeon sculpture will land on New York's High Line this autumn

Iván Argote’s hyperrealist aluminium aviary statue will be perched on the High Line Plinth from October

I am Discosailing: Rasheed Araeen's water ballet comes to east London's outdoor sculpture trail, The Line

The artist's 1970s concept, brought to life in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, invites the public to perform as a floating sculpture moving with the wind and water