Monday, March 09, 2026

A master of provocation: Kunsthaus Zürich presents 'Félicien Rops. Laboratory of Lust'

Félicien Rops. Laboratory of Lust. Installation views Kunsthaus Zürich, 2026. Photo: Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich.
ZURICH.— The theme of sexuality and the erotic is omnipresent in the history of art. It is therefore less a question of whether the topic belongs in a museum than of how it is addressed. Today, the search for answers to this question appears more important than ever. The Kunsthaus Zürich has chosen to explore the topic through an especially prominent example: the art of Félicien Rops (1833– 1898). From 6 March to 31 May 2026, it presents one of the most radical, yet most enigmatic artists of the fin de siècle. Rops’s demonically erotic visual universe defied the conventions of his time, and asks questions about social roles, moral conceptions and artistic freedom that are still relevant today. The most toxic bloom of Symbolism, bane of the bourgeoisie, enfant terrible – the list of epithets used to describe Félicien Rops and his demonically erotic art is a long one. Rops was a transgressor of boundaries. Lavished with praise by writers such as Charles Baudelaire and Joris-Karl Huysmans, the Belgian artist doggedly probed the boundaries of art. In his works, he railed against bourgeois double standards and small-minded propriety. Drawing on the gender clichés and stereotypes of his time, Rops exposed the hypocrisy of the upright citizen. The Rops phenomenon thus reveals not only some of the finest accomplishments in printmaking and draughtsmanship in around 1900, but also sheds light on gender relations at the turn of the 20th century. CREATIVE NICHES ‘Cruelty is nothing but human energy that has not yet been corrupted by civilization’, wrote the Marquis de Sade in his ‘Philosophy in the Boudoir’. Despite the questionable implications of that statement, it is easy to understand why Rops’s art has so often exerted a powerful impact on intellectuals: his depiction of untrammelled eroticism, often bordering on cruelty, opened up niches in which creative spaces could develop – places seemingly still untarnished by c...
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Influential -isms: Five key movements that revolutionized 19th- and 20th-century art

NEW YORK, NY.— A comprehensive volume covering five seminal genres that shaped art, from the late 19th century and well into the 20th: Impressionism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Each approach was distinct in aesthetic and philosophy, but all had immediate impact and enduring influence. Many great names were indelibly associated with one, some explored several during their careers. Impressionism, led by Monet and Renoir, focused on light and color, capturing fleeting moments and challenging academic art's rigidity. Expressionism was driven by artists like Edvard Munch and Wassily Kandinsky to convey raw emotion, distorting reality to reflect the angst of human experience. Surrealists, like Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, explored the subconscious, dreams, and the irrational, blending reality with fantasy across art, literature, and film. With Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko leading the charge, Abstract Expressionism emphasized spontaneity and emotion through bold, g
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MoMA opens solo shows by Peggy Weil and Elizabeth Murray

NEW YORK, NY.— Core Memory brings together, for the first time, 88 Cores and 18 Cores, two of Peggy Weil’s visualizations of Earth’s climatic histories. A pioneer of digital portraiture, Weil has recently turned her attention to what she calls Extended Landscapes: portraits of the invisible layers “beneath our feet, above our heads, and back in time.” Her work opens a window onto the planet as a recording device, revealing how climatic and geological events are inscribed into polar ice sheets and sedimentary strata. From the youngest snow to the oldest ice, 88 Cores descends two miles and 110,000 years through Greenland’s ice sheet. Unlike tree rings, which grow concentrically, ice preserves time vertically. Each annual layer of snow compacted into ice carries bubbles of air and gases. The inscriptions and distinct shades
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Buddha/Nature: MFAH pairs ancient masterpieces with contemporary global visions

HOUSTON, TX.— The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents Buddha/Nature: Five Dialogues on Our Shared World, an exhibition that explores key teachings of Buddhism that center on inherited patterns, cyclical relationships and how we engage with the natural world. Pairing five ancient Buddhist sculptures from the Xuzhou Collection, a private collection of Buddhist masterpieces, with a selection of works by six international artists, Buddha/Nature will be on view at the MFAH March 1 – May 10, 2026. “The Xuzhou Collection has been assembled with extraordinary connoisseurship and deep understanding of Buddhism,” comments Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH. “It is a singular collection in that it brings together sculptural representations of the Buddha from all the Asian cultures that have historically embraced Buddhism, and it is remarkable for the variety and beauty of the individual objects. We are deeply grateful to the creator of the Xuzhou Collec
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Between realism and reverie: Ariana Papademetropoulos transforms Thaddaeus Ropac

PARIS.— Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Marais presents Glass Slipper, Ariana Papademetropoulos’s first solo exhibition in France. Spanning painting, sculpture and installation, and centred around an aquarium complete with a shoal of fish, the exhibition draws viewers into a world where resplendent, volatile natural landscapes and psychological spaces collide with charged domestic interiors. Sculptural vintage payphones invite visitors to listen in on conversations between the artist and her medium and, while the Los Angeles-based artist’s new large-scale paintings are devoid of human presence, they pulse with unseen forces, situated somewhere between realism and reverie. At the beginning of the exhibition, two works installed in the antechamber introduce Papademetropoulos’s meticulous yet fantastical approach to hyperrealism. In them, transparent dry-cleaning bags are rendered with exquisite attention to their gentle creases and the way light shifts on their surfaces. The dresses suspend
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From Basquiat to AI: 'Studio Visit' maps the evolution of the artist's workspace

NEW YORK, NY.— Hauser & Wirth is presenting ‘Studio Visit,’ an exhibition in partnership with Performance Space New York—a nonprofit organization that since 1980 has served as a laboratory for cultural experimentation and artistic dissent—and is proud to support its mission and future programming. Between 2007 and 2010, artists Anicka Yi and Josh Kline collaborated with Jon Santos to form Circular File, a brief but consequential art collective that experimented with collaborative video production, improvisation and the sociality of artistic labor. Fifteen years later, Yi and Kline reconvene to initiate ‘Studio Visit,’ a curatorial project that is also an art installation in its own right. Featuring work by American Artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Huma Bhabha, Cecily Brown, Nicole Eisenman, Jason Fox, Black Quantum Futurism, Nikita Gale, Georgia Gardner Gray, Jesús Hilario-Reyes, Josh Kline, Ella
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Discovery of a masterpiece signed Michelangelo: The Spirituali Pietà

The Pietà was identified following its acquisition by a collector who wishes to remain anonymous. In June 2020, the work appeared in the catalogue of the Wannenes auction house in Genoa. Presented as the work of an anonymous artist from the 16th–17th century, the auction catalogue description states that “the iconography of the painting expresses a heterogeneous figurative culture, dictated by Tuscan-Roman influences inspired by the models of Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Francesco Salviati and, of course, Michelangelo”. After contacting the auction house, the collector acquired it in February 2024. The painting arrived at his home in April 2024, and after a few days, while examining the painting, he discovered the presence of two signatures. He then decided to commission several scientific studies which, combining laboratory tests and in-depth
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Ella Maillart's 1930s Jjourneys through Central Asia come to life at Photo Elysée

LAUSANNE.— Photo Elysée pays tribute to writer, photographer and traveler Ella Maillart (1903 1997) with an exhibition that looks back on her time in Central Asia in the 1930s. The show celebrates the unique career of one of history’s great travelers, whose body of work was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2025 in recognition of its universal significance. Featuring photographs and writings that trace Maillart’s four major journeys in the 1930s – through the USSR, China, Afghanistan and Iran – the exhibition highlights the documentary value of her work and its role in building understanding of the cultures she visited. Maillart was born in Geneva in 1903. She established herself as an important travel writer and reporter at an early age. In the 1930s, guided by a rare independence of mind, she journeyed extensively through Central Asia, taking an avid interest in the cultures and peoples she encountered along
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Cristea Roberts Gallery presents a major retrospective of Sol LeWitt prints

LONDON.— Cristea Roberts Gallery is presenting a display of prints by American artist Sol LeWitt (1928 – 2007), which showcases the role of printmaking in the artist’s work, as an integral part of his conceptual approach and artistic strategy. This retrospective of prints is the first dedicated to the artist in personal execution; the artist explored multiple configurations within different series, his systemic use of lines becoming a chan- nel for possibility. “Using a simple form repeatedly narrows the field of the work and concentrates the intensity to the arrangement of the form. This arrangement becomes the end while the form becomes the means.” Sol LeWitt eight years, bringing together over twenty graphic works made from 1970 – 2005, some unveiled at Cristea Roberts Gallery for the first time, in a diverse array of techniques, such as woodcut, screenprint, linocut, etching and embossing. Printmaking became central to
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Marc Scheps, former director of the Museum Ludwig has died

COLOGNE.— The Museum Ludwig mourns the loss of its former director Marc Scheps (1932–2026). He died on March 4 in Tel Aviv at the age of 94. Marc Scheps was director of the Museum Ludwig from 1991 to 1997. In 1979, he had already presented the Ludwig Collection under the title “Art of the Sixties: Europe and USA, from the Collection of the Ludwig Museum Cologne” at the Tel Aviv Museum, where he was director at the time. Peter and Irene Ludwig attended the opening, and a friendship based on a passion for art developed. In 1991, he was appointed director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. This was a big step for Scheps, a Jewish art historian born in Basel. He shared Peter Ludwig's “world art” philosophy and significantly developed the museum with an international and global perspective. Numerous works by artists from Latin America, China, and Africa were exhibited and acquired for the collection. Together with the current director of the Museum Ludwig, Yilmaz
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Silverlens opens an exhibition of works by Emily Cheng

NEW YORK, NY.— Emily Cheng's painting career has been a continuous search for visual methods that render the Sacred visually graspable. Spiritual art's best-known method is probably sacred geometry, an ancient practice that today continues to strongly influence the art and architecture of the Islamic and Christian world. Geometry is a language of ideal forms known to all cultures, and to a varying extent, a tool used universally. However, even though the rational basis of geometry allows it to make universal claims, these are not "total" claims. Geometry is only one of the many frameworks through which the mystery of the cosmos manifests. How otherwise might the design of the Sacred be revealed is a constant query behind Emily Cheng's artistic pursuit. In her paintings, one finds both geomancy and geometry, DNA spirals and Daoist talisman, electromagnetic grids and qi-energy network. For Cheng, knowledge ancient and modern are equivalent tools for creating a grammar and an artistic language showing h
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ARCOmadrid 2026: A great showcase of international contemporary art

MADRID.— This afternoon marked the closing of the 45th edition of ARCOmadrid, organised by IFEMA MADRID, reporting a positive outcome both in terms of visitor attendance and commercial activity. The feria once again stands out for the exceptional quality of its program, which has drawn a particularly dynamic community of national and international collectors over the past few days. ARCOmadrid, which once again benefited from the support of the Royal Household and the presence of the King and Queen of Spain at the opening ceremony on 5 March, is expected to reach an overall attendance of 95,000 visitors. The fair has also been notable for its strong professional turnout, bringing together around 40,000 art professionals from across the world. With the participation of 211 galleries from 30 countries, the International Contemporary Art Fair further strengthens the international standing of both the event and the city of Madrid
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Dr. Rangsook Yoon appointed Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs

SEATTLE, WA.— Following a comprehensive national search managed by DSG Global, the Frye Art Museum announced that Rangsook Yoon, PhD, has been appointed to the newly created role of Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs. Working with the director and across museum leadership, Yoon will lead an ambitious team of six to realize inclusive and rigorous exhibitions; develop interpretive materials that make complex concepts accessible and engaging to broad audiences; and oversee the study, care, growth, and diversification of the Frye’s collection. Yoon will begin her new role in late May 2026. “With both a deep scholarly background in European Modernism relevant to the Frye’s Founding Collection, and a proven track record of innovative collaborations with contemporary artists, Rangsook immediately stood out as a ‘unicorn’ candidate,” says Jamilee Lacy, Frye Executive Director. “She is uniquely poised to elevate the
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Artists in England are paid too much.
Prince Albert

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Georgia Museum of Art receives nine statewide and regional awards

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Flashback: On a day like today, sculptor and furniture designer Harry Bertoia was born
Harry Bertoia (March 10, 1915 in San Lorenzo, Pordenone, Italy - November 6, 1978 in Barto, Pennsylvania), was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture designer. In this image: Since 2000, Wright has sold more than 550 sculptures by Bertoia -- more than any other auction house or gallery.

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