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In mid-century Manhattan, painter Yvonne Jacquette set out to capture the city from above.A 1969 commercial flight to San Diego sparked the idea; looking out the window on that flight, Jacquette marveled at the clouds and shifting landscapes below.By the mid-1970s, Jacquette, who had previously painted still lifes and domestic interiors from odd, tilted, oblique vantage points, was chartering private planes out of Teterboro Airport in New Jersey so she could sketch and photograph the city from t

Fall is the art world’s most important season. Major museums and galleries across the globe open shows and commissions by artists whose visions (and markets) they believe in. It’s a great time to spot exciting new directions in both creative practices and the commercial side of things.This fall, art history and contemporary practice collide as the season’s breakout artists quote some of the world’s most famous canvases. In new shows opening this fall, there are artists giving a queer spin to Pic

Lucien Smith, a mainstay of the downtown New York art scene, has died at 37. The artist’s meteoric early success made him a defining, divisive figure of New York’s early-2010s art boom. He passed away on Monday, September 7th, in New York. A cause of death has not been made public. Half Gallery, which represents the artist, confirmed the news. “When we met Lucien right after he graduated, in 2011, he was the hub and heart of a burgeoning downtown culture,” dealer Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, who ga

Issy Wood has been selected as the inaugural artist for Artist Focus, a new contemporary program launched by London’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG) dedicated to artists who push the boundaries of portraiture. The program will present three solo displays each year, supported by the Gallery’s newly established Contemporary Council.“Issy Wood: Self-Portraits,” on view October 9, 2026, through February 28, 2027, in the Gallery’s Weston Wing, will bring together 12 self-portraits by the artist, the

Frieze Seoul wrapped up its fifth—and largest—edition on Saturday, September 5th, bringing 133 galleries to the COEX exhibition center in Gangnam. On the floor below, partner fair Kiaf SEOUL 2026 ran concurrently with 175 exhibitors.Yet the more than 300 booths inside COEX represented only a fraction of the art activity unfolding across Seoul—and South Korea more broadly—during the week. Biennials in Gwangju, Jeju, and Busan coincided with the fairs, while the capital hosted a packed program of

Berlin Art Week is back, which officially signals the end of the months of Aperol spritzes, pool trips, and pretending the heat wasn’t unbearable. A slow August can be great, but now it’s time for the city to get back in the groove with some fresh shows. And this year’s return—its 15th edition no less—is not messing around. Big names, rising talent, exhibitions, performances, readings, concerts: If it exists in the art world, it's happening somewhere in Berlin this week. A few examples to watch

Mano ultramar, 2026 Juana Gonzalez Arma Gallery Matière noire, 2026 Mathieu Cherkit Semiose In this monthly roundup, we spotlight five stellar exhibitions

The fifth edition of Frieze Seoul opened at the COEX in Gangnam on Wednesday, September 2nd, hosting 133 galleries from 30 countries. By the start of the fair’s VIP opening at 11 a.m., three lines poured out of the entrances, with visitors moving as frenetically as South Korea’s stock market. The energy was high, and it continued throughout the day. Returning international heavyweight exhibitors such as Hauser & Wirth and Pace Gallery were joined by Seoul mainstays Gallery Hyundai and Kukje Gall

Acne Studios has enlisted Nan Goldin to shoot its 30th-anniversary campaign, the Swedish fashion house announced. The American photographer made a series of portraits of artists, musicians, and actors from the brand’s orbit, each dressed in denim—the material the label built its name on—in a mix of new, archival, and reissued styles from its three decades.Goldin photographed nine friends of the house: artists Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Sandra Poulson, and Peter Schlesinger; actors Rila Fukushima and

Kiaf SEOUL returned to the COEX in Gangnam with a typically stylish and enthusiastic crowd on Wednesday, September 2nd. Marking a milestone 25th anniversary, the fair brings together 175 exhibitors from 18 countries under its first externally appointed creative director, designer Kuho Jung, who oversaw a rebrand built around the theme of Coexistence. This iteration promises an exploration of humanity’s shifting relationship with technology. Special exhibitions “HUMAL” and “Invisible,” the latter

Frieze Seoul 2026 kicked off its VIP day on Wednesday, September 2nd, at COEX. Now in its fifth edition, the fair is known for drawing a mix of collectors, curators, institutional leaders, and stylish VIPs, largely from across the Asia Pacific region. This year was no exception, with K-pop stars The8 from the band Seventeen and Annie and Bailey from AllDay Project, singer Woodz, models Hye-jin Han and Yano Shiho, and actors Ji-won Uhm, Dasom, So-Hee Han, and Si-young Lee.Adding to the initial ex

Galerie Nordenhake is opening a new, larger location in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district, the gallery announced this week. The space, at Goethestraße 2–3, opens to the public on September 10th with a reception timed to coincide with Berlin Art Week. A group exhibition titled “Symptoms” will be the space’s inaugural show.The move caps a year of 50th-anniversary programming for the gallery, which celebrated five decades of exhibitions across its Berlin, Stockholm, and Mexico City locations in 2026

Fall 2026 is stacked for the art world. Five continents’ worth of art fairs, a run of blockbuster museum openings, two major auction weeks, and more than a dozen gallery weekends are all packed into 16 weeks. The season opens in South Korea, with Frieze Seoul and Kiaf SEOUL’s milestone 25th edition in early September and closes with Art Basel Miami Beach and its satellite fairs in early December. In between there are plenty of other highlights including the Whitney Museum of American Art’s long-

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum will open “Princess Diana: Love Life Legacy—A Life of Giving” on November 7th—the exhibition’s global premiere. The show runs through May 31, 2027, at the Simi Valley, California, institution and brings together more than 700 artifacts from Diana’s life. They range from childhood keepsakes to the fashions that made her a global icon. Centerpieces include the “Travolta” dress, which Diana wore while dancing with John Travolta at a 1985 White House

As summer draws to a close, museums around the world are unveiling lineups of not-to-be-missed exhibitions. Some are righting long-standing gaps in the canon: The Denver Art Museum spotlights the resilience of Indigenous artists across Latin America, Helsinki’s Ateneum traces the overlooked role of esotericism in women artists’ work, and Tate St Ives mounts the first definitive retrospective of renowned British modernist painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. Others speak to the present. As the U.S. c

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will not stage its planned John Galliano retrospective, the museum and the designer announced jointly on Monday, August 31st. “John Galliano: Horizons,” scheduled to open in May 2027 as the Costume Institute’s spring show, has been called off after months of mounting criticism over Galliano’s history of antisemitic and racist remarks.“Following thoughtful discussions with John Galliano, we have together decided not to proceed with the exhibition,” said Max Hollein,

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will present “Freedom and Futures: Emancipatory Art in Africa, 1956–1982,” an exhibition tracing the history of modern art during Africa’s independence era, on view May 2–August 14, 2027. The show brings together roughly 250 objects from collections around the world, including some 40 works from MoMA’s own holdings. The show is organized by curator Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi with former curatorial associate Erica DiBenedetto.The exhibition proposes “emancipatory ar

Ask any Seoullite, and they’ll tell you the city is unrecognizable from five years ago. South Korea’s cultural and creative output—music, film, TV, art—has moved from regional strength to global fixture, and Seoul’s art scene has moved with it. The 2022 arrival of Frieze Seoul catalyzed a wave of overseas galleries opening branches in the city, and the influx has drawn foreign collectors deeper into the local scene and toward younger Korean artists working across a widening range of disciplines

Art is one of the most personal gifts a person can receive. Whether a painting, print, or a sculpture, art communicates mood, memory, and meaning in ways few other objects can. It has the potential to become part of someone’s daily life for many years, an object of reflection and beauty.But taste in art is highly subjective, making gifting art, especially for the first time, a bit daunting. Don’t be put off. Advisors and dealers say people overestimate how complicated the process needs to be. “C

Yayoi Kusama, the iconic Japanese artist whose polka dots and mirrored rooms helped define the visual language of post-war art, died on August 14th at a hospital in Tokyo. According to her gallery, David Zwirner, the cause of death was multiple organ failure. She was 97.“The world has lost a truly revolutionary creative force. Yayoi Kusama’s singular artistic vision has transformed the landscape of visual art forever,” said Victoria Miro and Glenn Scott Wright of London gallery Victoria Miro, wh