The Week in Art

After a delayed application process and an aborted initial commission, the US has at last appointed its artist for next year’s Venice Biennale: the Utah-born, Mexico-based artist Alma Allen. The Art Newspaper’s editor-in-chief in the Americas, Ben Sutton, talks Ben Luke through this confusing saga. At the National Museum of Norway in Oslo a new exhibition, Deviant Ornaments, focuses on the expression and representation of queerness in Islamic art over more than a millennium. Ben talks to the curator of the exhibition Noor Bhangu. And this episode’s Work of the Week is the Cree artist Duane Linklater’s wintercount_215_kisepîsim (2022), a piece using recycled canvas from teepees, and referencing the deaths of First Nations children after they were separated from their families in the Residential School system in Canada. It’s part of an exhibition called Winter Count: Embracing the Cold, at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and we talk to two of the four curators of that show, Wahsontiio Cross and Jocelyn Piirainen, about the work.Deviant Ornaments, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, until 15 March 2026.Winter Count: Embracing the Cold, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, until 22 March 2026Black Friday subscription offer: enjoy up to 70% off across subscription packages to The Art Newspaper this Black Friday, with a year’s digital subscription just £21, reduced from £70 (or the equivalent in your currency) and a print and digital subscription just £40, reduced from £99. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-BF25?promocode=BF25&utm_source=display+ads&utm_campaign=blackfriday25

Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914-16) sold for the second highest price ever realised at auction at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday. It was the most notable of several big sales in the sold-out (or “white-glove”) auction of 24 works from the collection of the late billionaire Leonard Lauder, and has prompted some commentators to declare that the art market has turned a corner following a prolonged downturn. Ben Luke speaks to The Art Newspaper’s senior art market editor in the Americas, Carlie Porterfield, about this week’s auctions, and asks if they do mark a turning point in the art market’s fortunes. Cop 30, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, is taking place in Belém, Brazil, and ends on Friday. To coincide with the conference, the Gallery Climate Coalition is publishing a Stocktake Report, in which it gives hard data on the efforts of its members to reduce their carbon emissions. The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent in London, Louisa Buck, who is a co-founder of the coalition, tells Ben more. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Victorious Cupid (1601-02) by Caravaggio, a landmark work by the artist, made at the height of his fame in Rome. The painting is making a rare journey from its home at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin to the Wallace Collection in London, where it is at the centre of an exhibition opening next week. Ben talks to the collection’s director, Xavier Bray, about the painting.Caravaggio’s Cupid, Wallace Collection, London, 26 November-12 April 2026

Studio Museum in Harlem, Grand Egyptian Museum, Stanley SpencerAs the Studio Museum in Harlem opens in its first ever purpose-built space, a new building by the architects Adjaye Associates, The Art Newspaper’s editor-in-chief in the Americas, Ben Sutton, speaks to Thelma Golden, the museum’s director, and Ben Sutton then gives reviews the building and the inaugural programming with Ben Luke. In Egypt, the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, has opened at last. Our digital editor, Alexander Morrison, talks to one of our Middle East correspondents, Melissa Gronlund, about this monumental institution. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Tree and Chicken Coops, Wangford by Stanley Spencer (1925). The painting features in the exhibition Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk at Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury, which is in the heart of the eastern English county of Suffolk. Ben Luke speaks to Amy Lim, the co-curator of the exhibition, about the picture. The Studio Museum in Harlem opens 15 November. The Grand Egyptian Museum is open now.Love & Landscape: Stanley Spencer in Suffolk, Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, UK, 15 November-22 March 2026; Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, UK, 4 April-1 November 2026.Subscription offer: eight-week free digital trial of The Art Newspaper. The subscription auto-renews at full price for your region. Cancel anytime. www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-8WEEKSOFFER

The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston, US, has agreed to return two works from 1857 by the enslaved 19th-century potter David Drake to his present-day descendants. By the terms of the contract, one vessel will remain on loan to the museum for at least two years. The other—known as the “Poem Jar”—has been purchased back by the museum from the heirs for an undisclosed sum and now comes with “a certificate of ethical ownership”. Ben Luke talks to Ethan Lasser, the MFA’s chair of the art of Americas, about this landmark agreement. At the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the exhibition Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream opens on Monday. Lam, who was of African and Chinese descent, is now widely regarded as a key, and singular, figure in Modernist painting. Connected in his long life to the Surrealists and Pablo Picasso, and to literary greats including Aimé Césaire and Edouard Glissant, his distinctive practice was above all centred on a profound engagement with Black diasporic culture. Ben talks to the two lead curators of the exhibition, Beverly Adams, curator of Latin American Art at MoMA, and the museum’s new director, Christophe Cherix. And this episode’s Work of the Week is the Adoration of the Magi (1488) by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The painting is in the Ospedale degli Innocenti, the first hospital for unwanted or orphaned infants, or foundlings, in Europe, built by the great Renaissance architect, Filippo Brunelleschi. The Innocenti, as it is called, is the subject of a new book, called The Innocents of Florence: The Renaissance Discovery of Childhood, by Joseph Luzzi, and Ben speaks to him about the painting and its significance in the Innocenti’s collection.Wifredo Lam, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 10 November-11 April 2026.The Innocents of Florence: The Renaissance Discovery of Childhood, published in hardback by WW Norton, from 11 November in the US, priced $29.99, and from 28 November in the UK, priced £23.New subscription offer: eight-week free digital trial of The Art Newspaper. The subscription auto-renews at full price for your region. Cancel anytime. www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-8WEEKSOFFER

The authenticity of the final self-portrait by Paul Gauguin, made in 1903 and housed in the Kunstmuseum in Basel, was earlier this year called into question. Now, the museum has completed its promised analysis, and confirmed that the painting is not a fake and is by Gauguin. Ben Luke talks to The Art Newspaper’s special correspondent, Martin Bailey, about the saga. In recent years, the late Indian sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee has come to increasing prominence. Now, a show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, called A Story of South Asian Art: Mrinalini Mukherjee and Her Circle, explores her work in the context of six other artists including her parents, Leela Mukherjee and Benode Behari Mukherjee. The exhibition’s curator, Tarini Malik, tells Ben more. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Character Head No.25 by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, the 18th-century sculptor who was born in Germany, and lived in modern-day Austria and Slovakia. The bust features in the exhibition Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: More than Character Heads, at the Belvedere in Vienna, and we talk to the exhibition’s curators, Katharina Lovecky and Georg Lechner, about the work.New subscription offer: eight-week free digital trial of The Art Newspaper. Cancel anytime. The subscription auto-renews at full price for your region. www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-8WEEKSOFFERA Story of South Asian Art: Mrinalini Mukherjee and Her Circle, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 31 October-24 February 2026.Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: More Than Character Heads, Belvedere, Vienna, 31 October-6 April 2026.

It is an event that has shocked the world and prompted a national reckoning in France: the robbery of eight jewels from the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre last Sunday. Ben Luke talks to Anaël Pigeat, editor-at-large of The Art Newspaper France and journalist at Paris Match, and Dale Berning Sawa, a regular contributor to The Art Newspaper, about the heist, the reaction, the political fallout and what it tells us about the place of culture in French society today. The Performa Biennial is celebrating its 20th anniversary edition from next week, and Ben talks to its founder RoseLee Goldberg about the biennial and the publication of the updated version of Goldberg’s classic book Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. And this episode’s Work of the Week is On the Other Earth, a new installation by the choreographer Wayne McGregor. It is unveiled next week at Stone Nest in London, as part of a major exhibition of McGregor’s work at Somerset House, called Infinite Bodies. Ben speaks to McGregor about the installation.The Performa Biennial 2025, 1–23 November. Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, RoseLee Goldberg, Thames and Hudson, $29.95/£24.99.Wayne McGregor: Infinite Bodies, Somerset House, London; On the Other Earth, Stone Nest, London, 30 October-22 February 2026; On the Other Earth is booked in one-hour slots, visit somersethouse.org.uk for more information.

Amid much debate about the health of the art market, Frieze is back in London, with its two fairs, Frieze London and Frieze Masters. Ben Luke talks to The Art Newspaper’s art market editor, Kabir Jhala, about the mood in the big tents in Regent’s Park. Beyond Frieze, of course, is a vast parallel art world, with thousands of unrepresented artists and curators keen to realise their big ideas. Hypha Studios has for some years been finding vacant property in cities around the UK to provide free exhibition and studio space to artists, curators and other creatives. This week, it launched Hypha Curates, an online sales platform. Ben talks to the non-executive director of Hypha Studios, Will Jennings. And this episode’s Work of the Week is a drawing by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. A study in red and white chalk for one of his greatest works, the painting known as The Great Bathers in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, it’s a key piece in a new exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, called Renoir Drawings. We speak to the exhibition’s curator, the director of the Morgan Library and Museum, Colin B. Bailey.Frieze London and Frieze Masters, until Sunday, 19 October.Visit hyphastudios.com and hyphacurates.comRenoir Drawings, Morgan Library and Museum, New York, 17 October-8 February 2026; Musée d’Orsay, 17 March-5 July 2026.

Tate Modern continues to explore the histories of Modern art beyond the European and North American canons that were once its focus. This week it opened the exhibition Nigerian Modernism, and The Art Newspaper’s digital editor, Alexander Morrison, speaks to the show’s co-curator, Osei Bonsu, and to one of the 50 artists in the exhibition, Jimoh Buraimoh. Before the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June of this year, the art scene in the Iranian capital, Tehran, was thriving. Sarvy Geranpayeh, one of our correspondents for the Middle East, travelled to Tehran for The Art Newspaper and tells Ben Luke how the art world has responded in the aftermath of the conflict. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Cakes (1963) by Wayne Thiebaud, a painting in the National Gallery of Art in Washington that has travelled to the Courtauld Gallery in London for Wayne Thiebaud: American Still Life, the first UK museum exhibition of his art. We visit the show and speak to Barnaby Wright, its co-curator.Nigerian Modernism, Tate Modern, London, until 10 May 2026.Wayne Thiebaud. American Still Life, Courtauld Gallery, London, 10 October-18 January 2026.LAST CHANCE student subscription offer: stay connected to the art world from your first lecture to your final dissertation with a three-year student subscription to The Art Newspaper for just £99/$112/€105. Gift, quarterly and annual subscriptions are also available.https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-student?offer=4c1120ea-bc15-4cb3-97bc-178560692a9c

A new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK, called Made in Ancient Egypt, reveals untold stories of the people behind a host of remarkable objects, and the technology and techniques they used. The Art Newspaper’s digital editor, Alexander Morrison visits the museum to take a tour with the curator, Helen Strudwick. One of the great revelations of the past two decades in scholarship about women artists is Michaelina Wautier, the Baroque painter active in what is now Belgium in the middle of the 17th century. The largest ever exhibition of Wautier’s work opened this week at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and travels to the Royal Academy of Arts in London next year. Ben Luke speaks to the art historian who rediscovered this extraordinary painter, Katlijne Van der Stighelen, who has also co-edited the catalogue of the Vienna show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Robert Rauschenberg’s Bed (1955), one of the most important works of US art of the post-war period. It features in the exhibition Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, which this week arrives at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. We speak to Yilmaz Dziewior, the co-curator of the exhibition.Made in Ancient Egypt, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, 3 October-2 April 2026Michaelina Wautier, Painter, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna30 September-22 February 2026; Royal Academy of Arts, London27 March – 21 June 2026.Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany,3 October-11 January 2026Student subscription offer: stay connected to the art world from your first lecture to your final dissertation with a three-year student subscription to The Art Newspaper for just £99/$112/€105. Gift, quarterly and annual subscriptions are also available.https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-student?offer=4c1120ea-bc15-4cb3-97bc-178560692a9c