The Week in Art

In this first episode of the autumn season, we are focusing on the news you might have missed in a busy couple of months in the art world in July and August. The Art Newspaper’s global editor-in-chief Ben Sutton joins host Ben Luke to talk about the latest news from the Americas, including US museums, and pays tribute to some of the major artists who died in the past couple of months. Our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, updates us on news from the market over recent weeks. And Catherine Hickley tells Ben Luke about news outside the US in her field, museums and heritage. Plus, we ask them all to name two exhibitions and events in the coming months that they’re looking forward to seeing.

Their tips for forthcoming events:
The 90s: Art and Fashion, Tate Britain, London, 8 October 2026 – 14 February 2027
Frieze Abu Dhabi, 19–22 November 2026.
I, Gustave Courbet. Painter and Rebel, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany until 8 November
Franz Marc: The Quest for a Better World, K20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 12 September-24 January 2027
Taryn Simon: Father Country I Do Love You, Guggenheim, New York, 18 September-14 March 2027
Teresa Margolles: En el lugar de los hechos (At the Scene), MoMA PS1, New York, 24 September-February 2027

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This last episode of the current season begins with Frida Kahlo. Tate Modern in London this week opened Frida: The Making of an Icon, an exhibition that began at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston earlier this year and which explores the Mexican artist’s paintings but also her influence on other artists and wider cultural forms. Ben Luke speaks to Tobias Ostrander, the co-curator of the exhibition. This week also marked 10 years since Brexit, the UK vote to leave the European Union. Ben speaks to Alexander Herman, the director of the Institute of Art and Law in London, about the impact of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU on art and cultural heritage laws. And this episode’s Work of the Week is the Visconti-Sforza Tarot, a deck of cards made by Bonifacio Bembo in 1456-58. Forty-five cards from the deck, which are held in the collections of the Morgan Library and Museum in New York and the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, are reunited in the Morgan Library and Museum’s new exhibition, called Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions. Ben talks to one of the show’s curators, Joshua O’Driscoll, about it.

Frida: The Making of an Icon, Tate Modern, London, until 3 January 2027

Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions, Morgan Library and Museum, New York, 26 June-4 October
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Kabir Jhala, The Art Newspaper’s art market editor, joins Ben Luke to discuss this year’s Art Basel, the big sales and the wider mood music. Pierre Huyghe has an exhibition at the Beyeler Foundation in Riehen, just outside Basel, and Ben speaks to him about it. And this episode’s Work of the Week is As Seen Below – The Dome, a Skyspace by the US artist James Turrell, which opens this week at ARoS, the museum in the Danish city of Aarhus. Ben speaks to the museum’s director, Rebecca Matthews, about the work, and to Stine Louring, an anthropologist and specialist in lighting design, who is leading a research collaboration between ARoS and Aalborg University exploring the neurophysiological and experiential effects of visiting As Seen Below.

Art Basel in Basel continues until Sunday, 21 June.
Pierre Huyghe, Beyeler Foundation, Riehen, Basel, until 13 September.
As Seen Below – The Dome, a Skyspace by James Turrell, ARoS, 19 June.
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The exhibition Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica began its life at the Art Institute of Chicago before travelling to Museu d’art contemporani de Barcelona (Macba) in Barcelona and now to the Barbican in London, in each case changing in relation to the particular circumstances of its location. One of the show’s curators is Elvira Dyangani Ose, the director of the Barcelona museum, and Ben Luke speaks to her about the show. Among the books shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction in the UK, which was awarded this week, is Daisy Fancourt’s Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health. Ben discusses her research and how it can be implemented. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red (1943), by Barbara Hepworth. It features in Hepworth in Colour, a new exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London, and The Art Newspaper’s digital editor, Alexander Morrison, speaks to the show’s curator, Alexandra Gerstein, about the work.

Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica, Barbican Art Gallery, until 6 September. To find out more about the wider events across the Barbican visit the centre’s website.

Daisy Fancourt: Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health, US: Celadon Books, $28.99; UK: Cornerstone Press, £22.

Hepworth in Colour, Courtauld Gallery, London, 12 June-6 September
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After years of civil war and continuity violence, Yemen’s heritage has suffered hugely, with buildings damaged across the country and antiquities looted. Yet across the country, there is a determination to protect and restore its historical landmarks and cultures. Ben Luke speaks to Melissa Gronlund, one of The Art Newspaper’s reporters on the Middle East, about these efforts. At the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the exhibition American Icon: The US Flag in Art opens this weekend. Ben speaks to the gallery’s chief curatorial and conservation officer, E. Carmen Ramos, about the exhibition. And this episode’s Work of the Week is “Untitled” (Revenge) (1991) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, one of the late Cuban-American artist’s sculptures using hundreds of wrapped candies. The work was first exhibited in Madrid in 1991 and is being shown there for the first time since that initial presentation in a survey show of Gonzalez-Torres’s work at the Museo Reina Sofía, which opened last week. The exhibition’s curators are Alejandro Cesarco and Nancy Spector and Ben spoke to them about the work.

American Icon: The US Flag in Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 6 June-6 December

Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Sweet Revenge, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, until 12 October
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