OLD NEWS

GERHARD RICHTER GOES MONUMENTAL
<https://tinyurl.com/58ypm538>
German art legend Gerhard Richter’s latest masterpiece is a monument. The permanent, site-specific work, titled Doha Pavilion: Gerhard Richter, will rise in the public space outside Doha’s Museum of Islamic Art (MIA), brought to life by art world architect Annabelle Selldorf under the auspices of Qatar Museums.
The hexagonal Doha Pavilion honors Richter’s more recent visual experiments. Its exterior will feature colorful printed panels drawn from his Patterns series, launched in 2011. There, Richter reconfigured a photo of his Abstract Painting (724-4) (1990) into vibrant, intricate tessellations. Patterns, of course, swiftly yielded Richter’s iconic Strip paintings <https://tinyurl.com/393zm9n5> , which function similarly, reorganizing Abstract Painting (724-4) strictly into infinitesimally slim horizontal bands instead.
<https://tinyurl.com/47z7ccfm>
“My trip to Doha in 2013 came two years into developing my Strip paintings, and the city’s architecture and history sparked an idea for a pavilion that could unite the thematic threads of that body of work,” Richter said in press materials, which highlighted similarities between his work and Islamic art’s geometric tendencies. “Doha is the right place and the only place for my pavilion.”
Inside, two complimentary bodies of work will transform this Doha Pavilion into a sort of Richter Infinity Room. Three distinct Strip paintings will ring the space, punctuated by two of Richter’s Mirrors—reflective works which he started creating during the 1980s. In this uniquely shaped room, their surfaces tessellate the Strips, and extend reality.
Two Richter sculptures will anchor this arty wormhole: a tripartite Strip Tower in the pavilion’s center, and a rare Richter stone sculpture titled Brunnen (Well) placed outside.
<https://tinyurl.com/yc7atvzy> _artnet

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MUST
<https://tinyurl.com/yv753tc3> _DavidShrigley

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DAVID SALLE ON MUSEUM MALPRACTICE, ART WORLD POLITICS, AND PAINTING by Adam Lindemann
<https://tinyurl.com/4hz4fwj6>
David: I look at it through a slightly different lens. It involves a whole worldview; what happened over the last 40 or so years is basically a shift away from thinking about art as a product of formal thought, as something involved with form. Institutional critique, identity politics, all of that, is really part of a move away from art as a formal language. Subject matter, identity, the artist’s positioning vis a vis certain issues, personal history, acts of resistance or protest, cults of personality—it all feels much more urgent, and it’s kind of swamped this other thing, the succession of styles and formal invention that had shaped a more or less recognizable landscape since the 1940s. What’s surprising is how fragile that construction turned out to be. It was swept away in just a handful of years. In that world, the one I grew up in, artists operated more like members of a guild, one that you sort of tried out for and then were invited to join. That system was narrow by design and so excluded a lot of people. The shift that occurred is fundamentally about representation; every social group sought to be represented on its own terms, to fly its own flag, and not just as a guest at the party. The system reversed from one of exclusion to one of inclusion. The artist became a spokesperson for an “out” group of which they were a part. That fragmentation, the breaking down into smaller and smaller groups that had to be represented, obviously mirrors what was happening in the society generally. Anyway, all this social groundswell happened in tandem with the globalization of, and the academic codification of, conceptual art as the lingua franca, or what John Baldessari somewhat sarcastically used to call, “the way we make art now.” Simply put, art was no longer something you make, but something you “do.”
David: All you have to do is look at the verbs used to describe art making. Where once there was painting and drawing, or forming and shaping, now there is unpacking and interrogating.
<https://tinyurl.com/y4b7mhrn>
David: Yes, very. To add another wrinkle, this all took place against the intellectual backdrop of deconstruction, which considered the individual artist as not so much a “creator” but simply part of a larger social system or structure of power. Taken altogether, this is a huge shift in focus. Museums all over the world have been both driving the change and responding to it.
David: And there is yet another piece to it—the assumption, sometimes true, that these previously underrepresented groups would bring into the mix some different, invigorating aesthetic criteria. So the notion of quality or value, the basic assumptions of the museum, are called into question. You can sense the museums asking themselves: “on whose authority” are these judgements being made? Who has the right to judge?
David: Right. But the assumptions about where exactly that moral thought “lives” within a given style are seldom convincing. It’s often just “us versus them.” This is related to the atomization of cultural life generally, or maybe better, its balkanization. The art world is too big now. No one system of thought or of curation can possibly include every tendency, every way of thinking about art. No tent is that big. But now there are absences of a different sort, which reflect a different sort of bias. What I was talking about last time we met, what I find dismaying is the dearth of painting shows in our museums. When was the last time there was a show that allowed the audience to see the breadth of great painting being made today?
David: Well, yes, now that you mention it: I organized a group show of painters for the Oklahoma Contemporary, a kunsthalle-type space in Oklahoma City. It was meant, in part, to call attention to this problem. The idea is to juxtapose a wide range of contemporary painters, and encourage the viewer to think about what they might have in common. The show is called “The Art of Witty Banter.”
David: Oh god, it’s so complicated. Look at the Whitney press release for the shows of the coming year: there’s a Roy Lichtenstein show in the fall, but no other show on the roster is a painting show. There are people who make paintings as part of their overall “practice,” but the line-up leans more heavily toward multimedia; video, film, performance, installation, etc.
David: I think that’s part of it. Curators don’t want to be seen as embracing the market. As if they need to either embrace or reject it. Or rather, they embrace it when convenient to do so; they just call it by another name. I guess painting doesn’t offer sufficient opportunity to align oneself with the resistance. Of course, curators want to be in sync with what artists are doing. And if the nature of art has changed, those curators are going to be looking for ways to package that change for their institutions. The piece of this which is hard to talk about is the way museums are actually shaping what artists do through the kinds of opportunities they offer. But it needn’t be either/or. There is so much good, interesting, challenging painting being done now, to ignore it is a kind of cognitive dissonance.
David: Which means that the other thing museums are not doing is educating the public; providing the interested public the opportunity to educate itself. Someone should be able to go to a museum and see the last 40 or 50 years of painting as a continuum, as a dialog with many voices. I suspect curators think the audience would find it dry, not topical enough. I disagree. I still think people want to engage with painting.
David: Popularity has become its own measure of success. As a Whitney trustee once put it to me: “We want bodies through turnstiles.” This was long before social media. Attendance is proof of function.
<https://tinyurl.com/5d784cku>
David: Well, look; certain wrongs urgently needed to be corrected. There was a preposterous absence of Black artists, Black painters in New York galleries for decades. People who were on the scene, making original, highly laudable work, in some cases breakthrough work, could not get a show. And very few women painters succeeded, and the ones who were shown were condescended to. It’s hard now to believe—it was totally absurd. That was not only horrible, it also didn’t reflect reality. There has been a tremendous backlog of work that needed to be seen and processed by the audience and the institutions.
David: They are now hard to separate. Some would say they shouldn’t be separated. It’s the problem more generally of how we talk about art. It’s easier to talk about what something is meant to represent than the thing itself. What happens is that artists start adopting that way of thinking themselves, and the work starts conforming to those expectations. It’s a different feedback loop from the market, but it’s a feedback loop nonetheless. I think putting the “representing” part ahead of the visual experience part, over time, also has a dispiriting effect on the audience, because all kinds of claims are made that don’t appear to be true. One’s experience doesn’t align with the wall label. It’s another kind of cognitive dissonance.
David: The problem is this: Is it possible to make qualitative judgements in an unbiased way? Maybe not. Some people feel that the whole idea of making judgements is just another form of cultural oppression. On one level, aesthetic preferences are all cultural. Take for one example the preference for consonant music over dissonant—it’s cultural, not intrinsic.
David: There are all these conflicting impulses now; the museums want to be, should want to be responsive, but, again, what are the criteria?
<https://tinyurl.com/3tuknzeu>
David: Of course good art contains ideas, but ideas alone don’t make art good. Like everything else in art, it’s a matter of how it’s done. Barbara Kruger does both, Hannah Höch does both.
David: Well, people buying with their ears is nothing new, though maybe it’s more pronounced now. We’ve had to learn to live with the fact that a lot of people in the art world are just not particularly visual. And not only collectors. It’s just not their overriding concern. Sometimes, you want to ask, “Why are you here?”
<https://tinyurl.com/9zdc733v>
David: What do they say when you ask them what appeals to them about the art world?
David: Maybe it’s better than working for a tech company.
David: Well, those jobs are finished, unfortunately. I think the point is that with so many non-visual people charging around the art world, the idea of art as a symbolic, formal language has been supplanted by narrative. Anyone can tell a story, and in a world where the ability to distinguish various forms of visual meaning has been downgraded, all stories are pretty much interchangeable, and so equally true. All you have to do is read some artist statements to see what I mean. We now live in the age of the artist statement, a kind of literary sub-genre.
<https://tinyurl.com/4c3dx97d>
David: I wonder what hip stylist put her into that dress. I guess you could say it was the perfect alignment of form and content. It sounds contradictory, but in another surprising turnaround, quality has been downgraded to a byproduct of popularity. It’s a populist idea: Something that is popular is inherently of value because art’s primary function is social recognition by the group. Cohesion is a social value which gets transmuted into an aesthetic one. So that’s a change, for better or worse.
Adam: But we’re saying that it’s for worse.
David: I would.
David: The weird thing is, nobody has control over what becomes popular. In the movie business, people act as though they know what makes a hit, but the truth is, nobody knows. So, if you tie your aesthetic fortunes—that is to say, derive your aesthetic legitimacy—to what’s popular, that feels pretty shaky to me. Ultimately, it’s a diminution. Let’s blame the deconstructionists; they wanted to dissolve the mystique of art, to deny its aura. Be careful what you wish for. If that’s the climate in which we find ourselves, let’s just pack it up and go to the Met Ball. _artnet

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THE MOUNT WASHINGTON POST
<https://tinyurl.com/2bczmefh> _LisaAnneAuerbach

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EVACUATIONS LIFTED AS CREWS GAIN UPPER HAND ON FIRE THAT THREATENED GETTY CENTER
All evacuation warnings around Brentwood were lifted as crews gained the upper hand on a brush fire that ignited Wednesday afternoon along the 405 Freeway, threatening homes, a university campus and the Getty Center.
The blaze, dubbed the Getty fire, grew to around 25 acres before forward progress was stopped shortly after 6 p.m., according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The fire was reported around 4:30 p.m. and appeared to have ignited near the Getty Center parking lot
The fire prompted the closure of the Getty Center, which will remain closed on Thursday to give firefighters easier access to the area, _LATimes

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WOLVERINE MARKET KEARSARGE, MI
<https://tinyurl.com/4vnt27z9> _RuralIndexingProject

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BLACK SQUARE (“AND SO ON TO INFINITY…”
inscribed in Latin around its edges) r
epresenting the nothingness that was prior to the universe,
as pictured by the great occult philosopher Robert Fludd,
who himself passed into infinity this day in 1637.
<https://tinyurl.com/ypyffyv2> _PublicDomainReview

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CLOUDS by greg
<https://tinyurl.com/4uvj5m7s>
Yeah, I think I just need to look at some John Singer Sargent watercolors for a bit. _gregorg

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172. FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT by Rainey Knudson
<https://tinyurl.com/2s472pf6>
This, in short—in very short—is how it went:
1886: 8 hours
In Chicago’s Haymarket Affair, a rally supporting an 8-hour workday turned into a bombing and shootout. Several policemen and workers were killed; four labor activists were hanged for a bombing prosecutors couldn’t tie any of them to directly.
1894: Fair wages
Pullman railroad workers went on strike after George Pullman slashed wages while refusing to lower company-town rents. When the American Railway Union boycotted trains carrying Pullman cars nationwide, President Cleveland sent federal troops to break it. The resulting violence killed 34 in Chicago alone.
1911: Safe conditions
146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire because owners had locked the exit doors.
1914: The right to organize
In the Colorado Ludlow Massacre, the National Guard and private security troops attacked striking coal miners’ families. Over 20 people died, including 11 children, in a fire set in the tent colony.
1937: a 40-hour week
Chicago police fired on a crowd of striking steel workers and their families marching toward the plant to demand union recognition and a 40-hour week; ten were killed, dozens more wounded in the Memorial Day Massacre.
On June 25, 1938, FDR signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, setting a minimum wage, a 44-hour week, and an end to most child labor. It excluded agricultural and domestic workers, a carve-out to secure Southern votes. Today, we’ve mostly forgotten the violent struggles laborers waged just a few generations ago. _TheImpatientReader

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MIKE KELLEY, ‘CATHOLIC BIRDHOUSE’ (1978)
<https://tinyurl.com/2ybvkjhb> _RabihAlameddine

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TRUST IN US MUSEUMS GROWS ACROSS PARTY LINES, SURVEY FINDS
Each year, researchers partner with museums to determine the public’s most trusted sources of information across 10 categories. With friends and public libraries tying for first, museums trailed just behind, surpassing the public’s level of trust in researchers and scientists, local and national news agencies, and the United States government.
On a scale of 1 (least trustworthy) to 10 (most trustworthy), conservative respondents gave museums an average score of 7.3, exceeding their 2021 and 2025 ratings. Moderates followed a similar upward trend with an assigned score of 7.2, a 0.6 jump from the 2021 number. Liberal participants scored museums at 7.8, matching last year’s average and moving slightly above their 2021 rating.
“People generally do not want political interference in museum content,” Susie Wilkening, principal of Wilkening Consulting and the survey’s lead author, told. “It can be perceived from all parts of the political spectrum, particularly with what’s happening with the Smithsonian.” _Hyperallergic

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MASTER OF THE BLUE JEANS, A BEGGAR BOY WITH A PASTRY, 1680S,
<https://tinyurl.com/2c734fsr> _JesseLocker

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LESS IS MORE: INSIDE THE ART WORLD’S NEW SEASON OF RECALIBRATION
The art world is entering the new season leaner and more clearheaded. Fat has been cut, and belts are being tightened. Ozempic is the drug of choice these days, not cocaine.
On the verge of this week’s openings, I called entrepreneur Tracey Ryans, who always seems to be at the coolest events, to compare notes.
“I don’t drink anymore,” Ryans said. “I don’t eat animals. I don’t really eat sugar or salt.” So, the parties and the dinners aren’t as fun as they used to be. “I go and shake hands and then parachute out of it.”
Ryans is not alone. There’s a vibe shift in the air. No one repeats the long-held mantra “grow or go” anymore. Less is more these days.
Business conditions have been brutal for years now—and, according to one insider, “There’s no end in sight.”
Galleries big and small have been cutting fairs, locations, staff, and artists. Collectors are narrowing their focus and scrutinizing prices. As hundreds of gallery openings, scores of international art fairs, and around-the-clock auctions all compete for the attention—and wallets—of elite buyers, everyone is recalibrating.
Business conditions have been brutal for years now—and, according to one insider, “There’s no end in sight.”
Galleries big and small have been cutting fairs, locations, staff, and artists. Collectors are narrowing their focus and scrutinizing prices. As hundreds of gallery openings, scores of international art fairs, and around-the-clock auctions all compete for the attention—and wallets—of elite buyers, everyone is recalibrating.
To be sure, people feel optimistic, and money has not disappeared, not with tech IPOs minting millionaires, dealers and advisors say. But it’s not flowing into the primary art market as it once did. And so galleries are adjusting to a new dynamic that involves a generational changing of the guard among collectors and artists, rising costs and economic uncertainty, glaring discrepancies between primary and secondary market prices, and growing competition from collecting categories like fossils, cars, and sports cards.
“People are still putting money into tangible assets, but they are being more selective,” Las Vegas-based art advisor Ralph DeLuca said. “With most of my clients, I make sure they look at young art, but it’s not where I make a living. My clients are looking at blue-chip and safe things.”
Discovery still matters, but increasingly that can mean rediscovering an overlooked artist, living or dead, rather than chasing the next hot young painter. Many are still scarred from the bursting of the last speculative bubble.
“Primary prices are too high compared to fair market prices,” Green said. He did more private secondary-market transactions this summer than in recent years as clients who traditionally bought from galleries started looking elsewhere. _Katya Kazakina _artnet

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PAPER WORKERS, 1934, BY DOUGLASS CROCKWEL
<https://tinyurl.com/2h3j4up9> _PeterHuestis

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FROM POUSSIN TO POKÉMON: WHY ATTITUDES TOWARDS COLLECTING ART ARE SHIFTING
Even more staggering was the $16.5m paid in February at the online auctioneers Goldin for a rare 1998 Pokémon “Pikachu Illustrator” card in pristine GEM MT condition. Owned by the WWE wrestler and influencer Logan Paul, who had bought it for $5.3m in 2021, the card was bought by the 33-year-old New York venture capitalist A.J. Scaramucci, son of the former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci. The price was the highest ever paid for a gaming card.
“I mean, Picassos are great, but Pokémon means way more than just a Picasso painting to people,” Scaramucci said after the auction. He added that this had been the first purchase of what would become a “planetary treasure hunt” that he and his younger brother would pursue for similarly compelling rarities across a range of collecting areas.
It is unlikely these will include art. For Scaramucci and others in the relatively small cohort of affluent buyers under the age of 40 who pay serious prices at auction, popular culture and luxury frame their collecting instincts. For them, Pikachu and Patek Philippe are far more relatable than Picasso and Pollock. These gilded individuals do not need to own old paintings to validate their new-found wealth.
“The auction houses have become a kind of luxury eBay,” says Sylvain Lévy, a Paris-based collector who specialises in Chinese contemporary art. “People are so rich they can afford any kind of caprice. It’s a different kind of buying, a different way of living. They’re not prepared to pay a lot of money for things they feel aren’t part of their lives,” Lévy adds. “They’re not interested.”
This is the central challenge facing the art trade over the coming 10 to 15 years. According to Bloomberg, around $1 trillion of art is going to be transferred down the generations over the next decade. But, as Philip Hoffman, the founder and chief executive of The Fine Art Group, which manages 350 family office collections, told Bloomberg: “The next gen don’t want it.”
In the meantime, the resale market for big-ticket young contemporary painting seems to have not so much collapsed as evaporated. In 2022, at the height of the speculative boom for hot, “red chip” names, paintings by Avery Singer, Christina Quarles and Flora Yukhnovich sold for auction records of $5.3m, $4.5m and $3.6m respectively. In the first half of 2026, the highest auction price for works by any of these former market darlings was $63,737, according to Artprice.
Given the extraordinary amounts of wealth out there in this second Gilded Age, we should buckle up for more auction results that represent “out-and-out madness” for superficial things. But they will not necessarily be made of paint applied to canvas. _ArtNewspaper

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I HAVEN’T BEEN SO EXCITED ABOUT A 9/11 IN YEARS.
_DeanKissick

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TSCHABALALA SELF UNVEILS FOURTH PLINTH SCULPTURE
<https://tinyurl.com/4a8jx2yp>
American artist Tschabalala Self has unveiled Lady in Blue (2026) on the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. Her sculpture, cast in bronze and patinated with lapis lazuli blue—a pigment used in in north Africa, the Middle East, and Europe since antiquity—will remain in place for two years.
The monumental Lady in Blue depicts a young Black woman striding forward with purpose in a blue dress and heels, her gaze directed ahead of her. Self, who was born in Harlem in 1990 and lives and works in New York, described her as being representative of the city’s spirit, rather than as a specific figure of veneration.
“This is a contemporary representation of personhood,” she told “Women need to be understood as being persons. Black people need to be understood as being persons. Despite someone’s identity politics, they should be able to be understood as a representation of all human beings; that’s what I’m hoping to accomplish with this work on a conceptual level.” _Artforum