Artdaily - The First Art Newspaper on the Net

World record for a Patek Philippe Ref. 3940
PARIS.- On March 11th 2026, Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer held its annual auction in Basel, featuring Swiss Art, International Art before 1900, and Important Watches. Art lovers and collectors turned out in force, whether in the auction room, by telephone, or online. In total, the three sales reached CHF 4.9 M (€5.4 M). The Basel Watch Auction was marked by a new world record for a Patek Philippe watch. The “Beyer. No. 17" Ref. 3940 achieved the exceptional result of CHF 762,150 (€843,113). Produced from 1985 to 2007, the Ref. 3940 is considered a major piece of complication watchmakingThe first 25 pieces were created to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the Beyer retailer: numbers 1 to 15 featured a German calendar, while numbers 16 to 25 were fitted with an English calendar. Number 17 belongs to this latter series of just 10 pieces, making it an exceptionally ... More

Jeff Dunas brings a human portrait of America to Munich
MUNICH.- There’s something quietly powerful about the way American photographer Jeff Dunas looks at people. No grand gestures, no spectacle—just presence. That sensibility is now on full display in Munich, where American Pictures & State of the Blues opened yesterday at Amerikahaus Munich. The exhibition, which runs through July 31, offers a deeply human portrait of the United States—one that feels both intimate and expansive at the same time. At the heart of the show is American Pictures, a long-running body of work Dunas has developed over decades. Rather than chasing iconic landmarks or dramatic moments, he turns his lens toward ordinary encounters—people standing still, waiting, thinking, simply existing. These photographs move at a different rhythm. They are quiet, almost restrained, yet they linger. A face in a small town, a figure on the edge ... More

Kunstverein München presents exhibitions by Matt Browning and Dorothea Lasky
MUNICH.- All Woodcarvings Remain Slow Motion Mobiles suggests a paradox at the center of Matt Browning’s work in wood. Objects that appear fixed and inert are in fact the result of prolonged movement—weeks of repeated cutting and carving—and remain subject to the wood’s own slow movement over time. What appears as stillness is not the absence of motion but its residue, a form temporarily stabilized through sustained physical engagement. Since 2013, Browning has worked steadily in carving. The exhibition brings together works produced during this time, all carved in Douglas fir. All of the works take the form of chain-link carvings cut from a single piece of wood, through which interior voids, grids, and frames emerge without assembly. Rather than constructing space from separate parts, material is removed until space grows from the block ... More

Louisiana Art & Science Museum hosts Then, and Now, and Always: The Art of Nick Bustamante
BATON ROUGE, LA.- The Louisiana Art & Science Museum is presenting Then, and Now, and Always: The Art of Nick Bustamante. Then, and Now, and Always explores themes of family, memory, loss, and transformation through Bustamante’s distinctive visual language. His work reflects the ways personal history and inherited experience shape identity over time, inviting viewers to consider healing, resilience, and connection across generations. “Then and Now and Always is a meditation on how memory, tender and painful, shapes who we are,” said Nick Bustamante. “Through layered surfaces and suspended forms, these paintings hold the echoes of family, loss, and transformation, inviting reflection on the histories we carry within us, across time.” Nicholas Bustamante earned his Bachelor of Arts from Humboldt State University and his Master ... More

Haus der Kulturen der Welt presents Tirailleurs: Trials and Tribulations
BERLIN.- On August 15, 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron invited the world to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Allied landing in Provence that followed the Normandy invasion and was pivotal to liberating France and Europe from Nazi Germany. The ceremony highlighted an often-overlooked truth: the majority of the 250,000 troops in the so-called B Army were African soldiers who, according to Le Monde, “came from the colonies.” These young Tirailleurs played an active role in the liberation of France from Nazi Germany, while many others hailing from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Oceania, and beyond were integral to the reshaping of Europe’s future and its institutions. Yet, their contributions have been systematically marginalized. While commemorative gestures, such as inviting African leaders to anniversary events, attempt to recognize their sacrifice, this history ... More

Rodney McMillian returns to Columbia for major career survey
COLUMBIA, SC.- The Columbia Museum of Art presents major spring exhibition Rodney McMillian: A Son of the Soil, on view from March 21 through June 28, 2026. Organized by the Columbia Museum of Art in collaboration with the artist, this exhibition is the first solo presentation in the Southeast of the work of Rodney McMillian, a Columbia-born artist working at the national level. Rodney McMillian: A Son of the Soil is a thematic presentation of the artist’s work across a range of media, including painting, video, and works assembled from industrial materials and household discards. The exhibition broadly locates McMillian’s artistic investigations within the cultural and political landscape of the American South, highlighting his diverse engagements with topics of land, the body, and the domestic sphere. It will feature more than 30 artworks, including new work that ... More

Takako Kido's defiant exploration of intimacy opens at IBASHO
ANTWERP.- IBASHO presents a solo exhibition by Takako Kido. ‘Skinship’ is a common term in Japan that describes the skin-to-skin, heart-to-heart connection between a mother and child, as well as among other close relatives. Kido was arrested in New York for producing what were deemed “controversial” photographs, yet she remains resolute in using her work to affirm the strength and necessity of family ties. In Japan, skinship is considered essential to the healthy development of family relationships, particularly between parents and children. From breastfeeding to cuddling, piggyback rides, bathing together, co-sleeping and even play, these forms of physical closeness express and foster intimacy. Through loving touch, a child learns what it means to feel loved and, in turn, how to extend that love to others, fostering healthy development and strengthening family bonds. ... More

Lucy McKenzie reimagines the spectacle in first French solo debut
SÈTE.- The exhibition Plastic Newspaper at the Crac Occitanie is the third instalment of a travelling project that began in September 2024 at Z33 in Hasselt (Belgium), and then moved to fjk3 —Contemporary Art Space in Vienna (Austria) in 2025. In this cycle, Lucy McKenzie examines the first forms of mass entertainment that appeared in the modern era. She explores their formal and cultural inventions that contributed to transforming everyday life into a permanent spectacle—such as painted panoramas, and sites devoted to art, science, and entertainment, where playful experiences and the rise of mass spectatorship converge. Lucy McKenzie was born in 1977 in Glasgow (Scotland). She lives and works in Brussels. She studied at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee (Scotland), then specialised in trompe-l’œil at the Institut Supérieur ... More

Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art presents Beth Ames Swartz and Julianne Swartz: Tender Alchemy
SCOTTSDALE, AZ.- Tender Alchemy: Beth Ames Swartz and Julianne Swartz presents the works of mother and daughter artists whose distinct practices are united by a shared devotion to transformation, healing, and the invisible forces that shape human experience. Though their materials and methods differ, both engage in a kind of alchemy: a transmutation of matter, energy, and sentiment into forms of quiet power and profound presence. Tender Alchemy marks the first time their works are presented together, offering an intimate look at artistic lineage. The differences between their practices are as instructive as are their affinities. Beth’s art is maximalist, saturated, and layered with meaning and color, striving toward symbolic depth. Julianne’s work is minimalist, ephemeral, and fragile in its neutrality. One accumulates density; the other cultivates restraint. ... More

Twenty years of mother's tankstation celebrated through a private collection
DUBLIN.- Only the fine, the large, the human, the natural, the fundamental, the passionate things. [i] It's hard not to catastrophise, but it feels almost impossible to write anything meaningful or genuine in the face of a dark and darkening world, without being entirely overwhelmed. The world stands by, watching “weapons grade idiocy”, rampant self-interest, and innocent people dying in the Minnesota snow. But if we don’t, think, speak, we lose. So I’m writing about Love. And Art. About loving art… About optimism. Twenty years of mother’s tankstation, celebrated by sharing it’s collection. Outside of the museum or corporate contexts, collecting art is (or preferably is) a profoundly personal matter, yet in potential, a shared experience: collecting is a quiet privilege but inessentially about possession or proprietorship, we are mere custodians. Nor do we believe it should ... More