The Week in Art

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

The Art Newspaper’s chief contributing editor, Gareth Harris, has just published a new book, Towards the Ethical Art Museum, which explores a range of issues affecting museums in the 21st century, from questions of provenance and restitution to funding and governance and responsibilities to staff and the communities the museums serve. He joins Ben Luke to discuss the book. One of the exhibitions of the year has just opened in Florence in Italy: the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco are jointly presenting Fra Angelico, devoted to the great 15th-century Florentine master. Our digital editor, Alexander Morrison talks to Carl Brandon Strehlke, a curator emeritus of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and curator of the exhibition. And this episode’s Work of the Week is PsychoBarn (Cut-Up) by Cornelia Parker, an installation first made in 2023 and relating closely to the British artist’s 2016 project for the roof commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Transitional Object (PsychoBarn). The work is in a major new group exhibition at the Kunstmuseum in Basel, Ghosts: Visualising the Supernatural and Luke speaks to its curator, Eva Reifert.Towards the Ethical Art Museum, by Gareth Harris, published by Lund Humphries, out now in the UK, £19.99 (hb), published in November in the US and Canada, US $34.99, CA $46.99.Fra Angelico, Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco, Florence, 26 September-25 January 2026.Ghosts: Visualising the Supernatural, Kunstmuseum, Basel, until 8 March 2026.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

Kerry James Marshall: The Histories at the Royal Academy of Arts in London is the largest ever European retrospective of the work of the US artist and has been greeted with universal critical acclaim. Ben Luke takes a tour of the exhibition with Mark Godfrey, its curator, and visits a related exhibition of Marshall’s graphic novel project, Rythm Mastr, at The Tabernacle in Notting Hill, London, with the co-curator of that show with Godfrey, Nikita Sena Quarshie. Last week, the National Gallery in London announced that it will build a major new extension, at a cost around £400m, of which £375m has already been raised. Project Domani, as it is called, is billed by the National as the largest transformation since it was founded, 200 years ago. The National will also expand its collecting boundary beyond 1900 in a major shift in the division of UK national collections. The Art Newspaper’s digital editor, Alexander Morrison, talks to the director of the National Gallery, Gabriele Finaldi. And this episode’s Work of the Week is The Three Dancers by Pablo Picasso, one of the greatest of all the many thousands of works by the Spanish artist. The painting was made in 1925 and Tate Modern is celebrating its centenary with an exhibition, Theatre Picasso, in which The Three Dancers is the centrepiece. Ben talks to Natalia Sidlina, co-curator of the exhibition, and to Enrique Fuenteblanca who, with the artist Wu Tsang, has designed the radical staging of the exhibition.Kerry James Marshall: The Histories, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 20 September-18 January 2026; Kunsthaus Zürich, 27 February-16 August 2026; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, 18 September 2026-24 January 2027; Rythm Mastr: The Chronicles, The Tabernacle, London, until 14 December.Theatre Picasso, Tate Modern, London, until 12 April 2026.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

Earlier this year, we took a tour of the V&A East Storehouse, the Victoria and Albert Museum’s vast new complex in East London. This week, it opens the David Bowie Centre, a dedicated space to the music icon. It is the permanent repository of thousands of items from Bowie’s archive, which are on display and also available for personal study. Ben Luke explores the displays at the centre with the curator, Madeleine Haddon. Last week, a new biennial opened in Bukhara in Uzbekistan, part of a major cultural shift in the country. The Art Newspaper’s art market editor, Kabir Jhala went to Bukhara for the opening event and delivers his verdict, and we also hear from its curator, Diana Campbell. And this episode’s Work of the Week is a pair of paintings: Untitled (2025), a new piece by Hurvin Anderson, and West Indies (2014) by Kara Walker. They are part of an exhibition at Michael Werner Gallery in London, curated by the critic and writer Hilton Als, which explores the Dominican-born writer Jean Rhys. We went to the gallery to talk to Als about these two remarkable paintings and his fascination with Jean Rhys’s life and work.David Bowie Centre, V&A East Storehouse, from 13 September.The Bukhara Biennial continues until 20 November.Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World, curated by Hilton Als, Michael Werner, London, 12 September-22 November.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

Since we were last on air in June, the US government has announced what it calls a comprehensive internal review of activities at eight of the 21 museums under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institution. Meanwhile, one of those museums, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., saw the artist Amy Sherald cancel a long-scheduled exhibition of her work, citing censorship and institutional fear of the US government. Ben Luke talks to Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper’s editor-in-chief in the Americas, about Donald Trump and his administration’s growing interference in museums, and whether Sherald’s act of resistance is an outlier or a marker of a wider art world response. The first major art fair of the new season, Frieze Seoul, is happening this week in the South Korean capital, after a period of political turmoil there. Our correspondent in Asia, Lisa Movius, visits the fair and gauges the mood. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79), by Dara Birnbaum. This landmark of video art is part of a new exhibition at San Marco Art Centre, or SMAC, a new space in the Procuratie Vecchie in St Mark’s Square, Venice. The show, called The Quantum Effect, explores the work of several leading contemporary artists in the context of quantum theory. I talk to the exhibition’s curators, Daniel Birnbaum—no relation—and Jacqui Davies, and to Ulf Danielsson, a physicist who has suggested quantum equations to accompany each of the pieces in the show.Frieze Seoul until 6 September.The Quantum Effect, SMAC, Venice, Italy, 5 September-23 November.