Allison Littrell, Morgan Elder, and Gabrielle Datau of LA-based Murmurs gallery announced plans to shut down operations on July 14. The gallery has operated in Downtown LA for the past 7 years, and its final exhibition was a solo show of work by Mexican artist Rodrigo Ramírez Rodríguez.

The Minneapolis Institute of Art has appointed Kevin Tervala chief of curatorial affairs and exhibitions. Tervala joins the institution from the Baltimore Museum of Art, where he has served as chief curator since 2023. www.artforum.com/news/kevin-t...

On Wednesday, mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth announced that they will expand their presence in California with a new gallery opening in Palo Alto. To commemorate the opening, the gallery will host a festival of public activities and debut an exhibition entitled “Calder | O’Keeffe.”

A ten-foot-tall “Iran War Participation Trophy” has been placed on the lawn of the National Mall in Washington D.C., recognizing President Donald Trump. The trophy is the handiwork of satirical artist collective the Secret Handshake. www.artforum.com/news/iran-wa...

Steidl, the internationally known German-language publisher founded in 1969, is in the throes of financial difficulties so severe that it has wound up in court. The publisher filed to start preliminary insolvency proceedings on July 12 after struggling to pay employees regularly for months.

The Artists Living With Cancer Grant has just named its inaugural recipient. The awardee is Jacolby Satterwhite, a prolific conceptual and digital artist who has grappled with cancer since he was twelve years old. www.artforum.com/news/jacolby...

Set to break ground in January 2027, a new wing of the Clark Art Institute will house the Aso O. Tavitian collection, which includes over 300 works of art from the private collection of the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Aso O. Tavitian. www.artforum.com/news/clark-a...

The Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC has presented its $100,000 Bucksbaum Award to New York–based sculptor and performance artist Pat Oleszko. Oleszko was chosen for the honor from among the fifty-six artists and collectives included in the 2026 Whitney Biennial, on view through August 23.

The Zimmerli Art Museum, the fine arts museum of Rutgers University in New Jersey, has just received a gift of more than seventy noteworthy works of modern and contemporary art from Anne and Arthur Goldstein, longtime benefactors of the institution. www.artforum.com/news/zimmerl...

Big changes are afoot at James Cohan Gallery, which launched its new identity as NORR COHAN on July 15. The announcement also revealed that partner David Norr is now the sole owner and leader of the gallery, which operates spaces in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood. www.artforum.com/news/james-c...

Yesterday Sotheby’s announced that they had logged their highest-ever number in sales––an astonishing $4.4 billion––between January and June of 2026. The auction house attributed these returns, in part, to broadened engagement, some of which was fostered by their move to the Breuer Building.

On July 14, at an auction held within Sotheby’s Breuer building, a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil set a new record with its $50.1 million purchase price. Nicknamed “Gus,” the T. rex skeleton became the most expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold at auction.

Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has been reported missing following the expiration of his jail sentence. Otero Alcántara, who was serving 5 years on charges of showing disrespect to national symbols, was set to be released from Guanjay, a maximum-security prison, on July 9.

Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease, has been detected in a cooling tower at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on New York’s Upper East Side. The bacteria had previously been detected in the cooling tower of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, a few blocks north on Fifth Avenue.

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has donated 3 sculptures from his “Gluts” series to Artist Rooms, a collection managed by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland. The pieces will be on view at the Tate Modern later this year, extending 2025’s centennial celebration of Rauschenberg’s birth.

The two principal suspects in the spectacularly disruptive, broad-daylight jewel heist that took place at the Louvre in October of 2025 claimed in statements to judiciary authorities that a “mysterious mastermind,” who they refuse to name, orchestrated the theft. www.artforum.com/news/louvre-...

US President Donald Trump on July 13 signed proclamations drastically reducing the size of two national monuments. Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, both in Utah, will lose “close to a million and a half acres each,” said Trump. www.artforum.com/news/trump-d...

A Nazi-looted painting that once belonged to Jewish Dutch art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, has been identified and will now be returned to his heirs. The painting had been in the possession of Amsterdam resident Robert van der Hoek, who found it in a trash pile in the city decades ago.

Brady Lum, the onetime chief operating officer of Atlanta‘s High Museum of Art, pleaded guilty in federal court on July 13 to a charge of theft concerning programs receiving federal funds. Lum is charged with embezzling more than $600,000 from the institution. www.artforum.com/news/former-...

The Felix Art Fair, known for its takeovers of LA's Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, announced its 2027 edition will reinvent its format—restricting offerings to the two-story cabanas and centering solo and two-artist presentations, meant to produce "the intimacy of a studio visit" at each booth.

Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur, who cloaked uncompromising feminist ideals in stories and novels that glowed with magical realism, died on July 3 in San Francisco. She was eighty. www.artforum.com/news/iranian...

The Ecuadorian Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture on July 6 named a winner of the competition to design the new National Museum of Ecuador (MuNA) and touched off a controversy that to date has seen the resignation of at least two high-ranking officials, the Architects’ Newspaper reports.

Following a vote on June 25, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) adopted a new Code of Ethics to guide the activities of museums globally. The vote, which passed by a margin of 85.9% in favor, was held at ICOM’s 41st Ordinary General Assembly in Paris. www.artforum.com/news/icom-ad...

Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse announced on Saturday that he had received a letter from a group of whistleblowers alleging that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had improperly rushed its recent renovation efforts in service of the president’s aesthetic impulses.

The Bayeux Tapestry, a massive, 11th century masterwork that depicts the events surrounding the Duke of Normandy’s conquest of England, has returned to England for the first time in nearly one thousand years. It will be on display at the British Museum from September 10 until July of 2027

Buckingham Palace's Picture Gallery on July 9 unveiled a surprising new rehang that nearly doubles the works on view, from 63 to 120. Undertaken at the behest of King Charles III, the salon-style hang echoes recent displays at the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain.

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III has pushed back against a White House Domestic Policy Council report accusing the National Museum of American History of "extreme political activism," calling it "not a fair characterization of the work and totality" of the museum.

Legionella bacteria has been found in the cooling tower of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The Art Newspaper reports that the bacteria was discovered during routine monthly testing earlier this week and that the institution quickly complied with the city’s remediation requirements.

The Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania, Australia has just announced plans to build an outpost museum in Bangkok; specifically, plans indicate that the new site, called Mona Bangkok, will be located on the banks of the Chao Phraya River. www.artforum.com/news/museum-...

Hauser & Wirth has been cleared of charges alleging they breached British-imposed sanctions against Russia. The gallery was charged by the U.K. Crown Prosecution Service and art shipping company Artay Rauchwerger Solomons, for selling an artwork by George Condo to a buyer with connections to Russia.

Post-Fair, an alternative art fair held in a Santa Monica post office that was launched by gallerist Chris Sharp in 2025, will expand to Paris this October. The innovative fair’s first international edition will debut during Art Basel Paris and be staged in two buildings in the Marais.

Mickalene Thomas, known for her paintings and photo-based collages, is being sued by photographer Barbara Karant for alleged copyright infringement. The suit alleges that Thomas appropriated Karant’s images without attribution or consent, according to court documents obtained by Hyperallergic.

The Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) has announced David Odo as its new director. Odo, who specializes in nineteenth-century photography of Japan joins the institution from the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia in Athens, where he is director and chief curator.

Trinidadian-born Caracas-based abstract sculptor Valerie Brathwaite, who drew on what she described as the “overwhelming beauty” of nature to create vibrantly hued organic forms, has died. Her death was announced on July 6 by the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires in an Instagram post.

Emirati curator and Sharjah royal family member Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi has been named chairperson of the Sharjah Museums Authority, which oversees 16 cultural institutions across the emirate. The July 7 decree adds to a long list of leadership roles she holds. www.artforum.com/news/hoor-al...

Marlborough‘s former home, vacated after the gallery’s 2024 closure, was recently sold for $7.5 million to Gazelli Art House. Founded in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer, Marlborough operated for nearly 80 years, representing top-name contemporary artists like Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.

Decades after discovering samples of Native American hair within its collection, the American Museum of Natural History plans to add them to the list of items for repatriation to concerned tribes. The hair samples were collected for an exhibition at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

The Busan Biennale has announced the 46 artists and collectives from 22 countries participating in the 2026 edition, set to take place August 29–November 1. The cohort will respond to the theme “Dissident Chorus,” as set out by the event’s co–artistic directors, Amal Khalaf and Evelyn Simons.

Fundación Kahlo, a nonprofit established for the preservation of Freida Kahlo’s artistic legacy, has announced its new Kahlo Art Prize. The award will grant winners $50,000 towards developing their creative practices, as well as the chance to exhibit at Mexico City’s Museo Casa Kahlo.

A British businessman, Jonathan Hornby, has been fined in connection to his attempts to ship 4 artworks to Russia, an act that violates U.K. sanctions. The aborted shipments were linked to both of Hornby’s businesses, In Time Worldwide Express Limited and Global Customs Systems UK Limited.

Thick clouds of smoke filled the sky in Brussels Monday night. Shortly after 6pm, a fire erupted on the technical roof of one of the soon-to-open Kanal museum's towers—the section set to house Kanal Architecture. No one was present, and no injuries were reported. www.artforum.com/news/fire-at...

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts today named the 78 recipients of its spring 2026 grants. The foundation will award nearly $5.2 million to visual arts organizations and institutions scattered across twenty-six states; Washington, DC; Mexico City; and Berlin.

Detroit Institute of Arts director Salvador Salort-Pons has announced the discovery of a previously unattributed Diego Velázquez portrait. Writing in the Prado's ARS Magazine, he used archival research and X-ray imaging to attribute "The Count-Duke of Olivares in Armor" (1626) to the painter.

According to the General Authority for Antiquities and Museums in Yemen, 28 Yemeni artifacts held in London have been looted from their country of origin. Of these objects, 8 were auctioned by Bonhams and Apollo Art Auctions, and the remaining 20 were found in the collection of the British Museum.

The New Museum in New York has named Massimiliano Gioni as its new director. Gioni, who has served as the institution’s artistic director since 2014, succeeds Lisa Phillips, who announced her departure last fall after twenty-six years in the role. www.artforum.com/news/massimi...

Timed to the US's 250th anniversary, the World Monuments Fund named 10 "irreplaceable" historic places in need of preservation—including the Studies Building at Black Mountain College, the experimental school that fostered the careers of Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning, and Dorothea Rockburne.

The British Museum in London broke its own single-day ticket sale records last Wednesday, thanks to the impending one-year loan of the Bayeux Tapestry. Ticket-seekers hoping to see the artefact this fall queued online for up to 9 hours, with up to 80,000 people waiting by mid-afternoon.

Frieze has announced Athens-based artist Theo Triantafyllidis as the winner of the 2026 Frieze London Artist Award. Triantafyllidis, who trained as an architect, is known for a practice combining performance and installation with gaming and VR technology. www.artforum.com/news/theo-tr...

The White House on July 4 issued an acidic 162-page report accusing the Smithsonian National Museum of American History of "extreme political activism" and treating the American story "as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens." www.artforum.com/news/white-h...

Thanks to a gift from a pair of Dallas-based art collectors, London's National Gallery has added a painting by Angelica Kauffmann to its permanent collection. The painting is Kauffmann’s first history painting in oils to become part of a current U.K. national collection.