John Giorno’s experimental “Dial-A-Poem” project goes online.
Portrait of John Giorno with Dial-A-Poem, 1970. Photo by Michael McClanathan. Courtesy of Giorno Poetry Systems archive.
Once a radical voice on the rotary dial, American artist and poet John Giorno’s Dial-A-Poem is now just a click away. First introduced in 1969, the project invited callers to dial a phone number and hear recorded readings of poems. Now, the phone line has gone global: Audiences can find the project on a newly launched website and localized phone numbers worldwide.
Giorno, who died at 82 in 2019, was a poet and artist who bridged the literary and visual art worlds. Working from downtown New York, he collaborated with artists like Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg while building Giorno Poetry Systems, a foundation committed to expanding the reach of poetry.
Dial-A-Poem premiered at Architectural League of New York in January 1969 and was presented at the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) 1970 exhibition “Information.” Visitors could call a number (originally 212-628-0400) and hear Giorno—or popular figures such as novelist Kathy Acker and musician Patti Smith—recite a poem. That initial version drew FBI attention for its inclusion of politically radical ideas. It received more than 1.1 million in four-and-a-half months. Now, the renewed version combines early recordings with contributions from international poets and performers, creating an archive accessible to a global audience.
Portrait of John Giorno reading at City Lights Italia Festival in Florence, Italy, 1998. Photo by Michele Corleone. Courtesy of Giorno Poetry Systems archive.
“When John Giorno first conceived of Dial-A-Poem, he envisioned a new venue for poetry beyond books and magazines, and leveraged emerging answering-machine technology,” Bonnie Whitehouse, archivist for Giorno Poetry Systems, told Artsy. “The Dial-A-Poem website faithfully builds on Giorno’s original concept of encountering randomly selected recorded poems to maintain the spontaneity and serendipity of Dial-A-Poem. By harnessing web-based technology instead of phone lines, Dial-A-Poem can transcend geographical boundaries and increase access.”
In recent years, the project has been reactivated in different forms. In 2012, Giorno recorded new material and created stand-alone rotary telephone sculptures programmed with poems for a MoMA exhibition, “Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language.” However, these were not connected to live numbers. In 2021, Giorno Poetry Systems restored the project’s dial-in service, bringing back the phone-based element for the first time in decades. The number was turned off in 1971, but reactivated several times for various exhibitions.
The current iteration includes five existing live phone lines, including the original and an updated U.S.–based line, as well as numbers in Brazil, Mexico, and France. Giorno Poetry Systems expects numbers to go live in Switzerland, Hong Kong, Italy, and Thailand in 2026.
New BBC series “The Art Game” hosts exclusive auction on Artsy.
Left to right: Portrait of Celeste Najt. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Portrait of 44flavours. Courtesy of the artists.
Artsy is partnering with the BBC and Stellify Media on an episode of its forthcoming series The Art Game, a televised competition where British participants will be challenged to buy and sell artworks. As part of the show, Artsy is staging an online auction curated around the theme of “Boundless Berlin.” The sale spotlights works by two of the city’s rising talents: Argentine-born artist Celeste Najt and artist duo 44flavours, comprising German artists Sebastian Bagge and Julio Rölle.
Registration for the auction opens on September 23rd, bidding begins September 27th, and the sale will close on September 29th at 12 p.m. EST (5 p.m. GMT).
The Art Game will explore the high-stakes world of art dealing through a six-part limited series. In each hour-long episode, contestants will face a new challenge that involves selling art. The series will premiere in 2026; the exact date has yet to be announced.
“Boundless Berlin” spotlights two up-and-coming Berlin-based artists, whose work channels the city’s cosmopolitan personality and its legacy of bold creativity.
Najt studied visual arts at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes in Buenos Aires, where she predominantly worked on digital collages before eventually turning to painting. Her map-inspired paintings, characterized by gestural marks and bright colors, combine geographic motifs and layered collage-like imagery. Her practice also includes abstract wooden sculptures, where she wraps and collages the exteriors with paper maps. Her most recent solo exhibitions have been presented by Quimera Galería in Buenos Aires and the Argentinian Embassy in Germany.
Bagge and Rölle started working together as 44flavours in 2003. At first, the duo began as graphic designers; however, their practice has evolved into one that includes painting, ceramics, sculpture, and murals. Across mediums, their work features layered geometric shapes and playful forms, combining bright colors and patterns to create chaotic abstractions. As part of their improvisational work, the pair often uses everyday or found materials as their canvas, such as cardboard, stone, wood, or even an object from a flea market. Some of their murals have appeared in Berlin; Dakar, Senegal; São Luis, Brazil; and Abrantes, Portugal, to name a few.
Marina Abramović to be first living woman to get a solo show at Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia.
Portrait of Marina Abramovic by Clara Melchiorre. Courtesy of Gallerie dell’Accademia.
Marina Abramović will become the first living woman artist to be featured in a major solo exhibition at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. Titled “Marina Abramović: Transforming Energy,” the show will open on May 6, 2026, aligning with the 2026 Venice Biennale, and will run through October 19, 2026. The exhibition is also framed as a celebration of the artist’s 80th birthday: November 30, 2026.
Shai Baitel, artistic director of the Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai, curated the exhibition, working in close collaboration with the artist. Baitel previously helped stage an exhibition by the same name at MAM, which opened in October 2024 and featured works inspired by Abramović’s walk across the Great Wall of China. Now, Abramović will present both new and old work across the Venetian museum’s temporary and permanent exhibition spaces.
“Placing Marina Abramović’s work within the permanent collection brings past and present into direct dialogue, and invites audiences to inhabit that space with their own bodies,” Baitel said in a press statement.
Marina Abramović, installation view of “Transforming Energy” at Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai. Photo by Yu Jieyu. Courtesy of Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai.
“Transforming Energy” will feature Abramović’s interactive “Transitory Objects,” including stone beds and crystal-embedded structures designed to facilitate what the artist describes as “energy transmission.” Paired with these works, the exhibition includes landmark performance pieces such as Imponderabilia (1977), in which Abramović and Ulay, her longtime partner, created a narrow entryway and stood naked in it, forcing viewers to squeeze past them. It will also include Rhythm 0 (1974), in which the artist stood still for six hours in a gallery, encouraging guests to interact with her using objects, such as a rose or scissors, on the table in front of her.
Another highlighted work is Pietà (with Ulay) (1983), a a photographic work inspired by the Christian icon of the Pietà, which will be paired with Titian’s Pietà (ca. 1575–76), the final yet unfinished work by the Renaissance master. It will coincide with the painting’s 450th anniversary. The exhibition will also feature Abramović’s series using precious stones, such as quartz and amethyst. These materials echo the Venetian mosaic tradition, tapping into the city’s history of Renaissance-era material experimentation.
Marina Abramović, installation view of “Transforming Energy” at Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai. Photo by Yu Jieyu. Courtesy of Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai.
“I was 14 when my mother first brought me to the Venice Biennale,” Abramović said in a statement. “We traveled by train from Belgrade, and as I stepped out of the station and saw Venice for the first time, I began to cry. It was so incredibly beautiful—unlike anything I had ever seen. Since then, returning to Venice has become a tradition, and after receiving the Golden Lion in 1997, the city has always held a special place in my life.”
During the 1997 Venice Biennale, Abramović became the first woman to be awarded a Golden Lion. More recently, Abramović made history when she became the first woman to present a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in September 2023, which she discusses in-depth on the Artsy Podcast.
$40 million Frida Kahlo painting likely to break record for a woman artist at auction.
Frida Kahlo, El sueño (La cama), 1940. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Frida Kahlo’s 1940 self-portrait El sueño (La cama) could become the most expensive artwork by a woman artist ever to be sold at auction when it goes on sale in November. The painting, which carries an estimate of $40 million–$60 million, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s New York as part of Exquisite Corpus, a major private collection sale of more than 80 Surrealist works.
Kahlo’s current auction record was set when Diego y yo (1949) sold for $34.9 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2021. The result is also the highest price for a Latin American artwork at auction. Meanwhile, the record for a work by a woman artist at auction was set when Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932) sold for $44.4 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2014. Kahlo’s El sueño is positioned to challenge both benchmarks.
Dorothea Tanning, Interior with Sudden Joy, 1951. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
El sueño was painted at a time of intense personal upheaval and suffering for Kahlo. Her former lover, Leon Trotsky, was assassinated in 1939, and in 1940, she divorced from the artist Diego Rivera. This image portrays the artist lying in bed, intertwined with vines. Above her, a skeleton wired with dynamite hovers over the bed, holding a bouquet of dried flowers. The painting has been out of the public eye for almost 30 years and will travel to London, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Paris before the showing in New York ahead of the sale during the marquee November auction season.
“El sueño stands among Frida Kahlo’s greatest masterworks—a rare and striking example of her most surrealist impulses,” said Anna Di Stasi, senior vice president at Sotheby’s. “In this composition, Kahlo fuses dream imagery and symbolic precision with unmatched emotional intensity, creating a work that is at once deeply personal and universally resonant. It is an enduring testament to her genius, and its appearance on the market presents an unparalleled opportunity to acquire a cornerstone of Surrealism.”
Kay Sage, The Point of Intersection, 1951–52. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Women Surrealists feature prominently in the Exquisite Corpus auction. Dorothea Tanning’s Interior with Sudden Joy (1951), estimated at $2 million–$3 million, is among the most significant examples of the artist’s psychologically charged interiors to appear at auction. Kay Sage’s The Point of Intersection (1951–52), meanwhile, estimated at $1 million to $1.5 million, offers a counterpoint with its desolate landscapes of scaffolding-like structures and suspended drapery.
Other highlights from leading Surrealist figures at the sale include René Magritte’s La Représentation (1962) and La Révélation du présent (1936), estimated at $4 million–$6 million and $2 million–$3 million, respectively. Also featured is Salvador Dalí’s Symbiose de la tête aux coquillages (1931), painted the same year as his most famous work, Persistence of Memory, which is expected to fetch $2 million–$3 million.
The announcement of the Exquisite Corpus auction follows last week’s $136 million white-glove sale at Sotheby’s London of works from Pauline Karpidas’s collection, which included Surrealist pieces by Magritte and Max Ernst.
Paris’s Centre Pompidou closes for five-year renovation.
Exterior view of the Centre Pompidou, 2008. Photo by Lauren Manning. Image via Flickr.
Paris’s Centre Pompidou has closed its doors to begin the most sweeping renovation in its 48-year history. The overhaul will modernize the landmark museum’s infrastructure and visitor experience, while addressing long-deferred safety concerns. The museum closed off its permanent collection in March, but hosted temporary exhibitions throughout the summer. The final exhibition, a retrospective of the German artist Wolfgang Tillmans, closed on September 22nd.
Designed by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, the Pompidou opened in 1977 as a radical “cultural machine,” according to the museum, with a distinctive exterior defined by exposed pipes and other infrastructure. The renovation of the building by French Japanese architectural firm Moreau Kusunoki, in collaboration with Frida Escobedo Studio, is estimated to cost €460 million ($542 million). Technical work will be overseen by AIA Life Designers, with the French state contributing €280 million ($330 million) and private funding, including €50 million ($58 million) from Saudi Arabia, covering the remainder.
Renovation priorities include removing asbestos from the façade, upgrading fire safety, and improving accessibility for disabled visitors. Officials say the improvements to climate control could also reduce the museum’s energy consumption by as much as 40%, as reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP). “We’re keeping the exterior framework, but from the basement to the top floor, we’re changing everything,” the Pompidou’s president, Laurent Le Bon, told the AFP.
During the renovations, the museum’s collection and programming will be presented across France and abroad through the museum’s “Constellation” initiative. The program kicked off in the spring. Exhibitions are scheduled at partner venues including the Centre Pompidou-Metz, the West Bund Museum in Shanghai, and H’ART Museum in Amsterdam. A new facility, the Centre Pompidou Francilien—Fabrique de l’Art, will open in 2026 in Massy, a suburb of Paris, to support the museum’s conservation efforts.
The Pompidou’s main campus is expected to reopen in 2030, but an exact date has yet to be set. “We hope that visitors will feel a bit [of] the same shock as when the Centre opened in 1977,” Le Bon said.
Thaddaeus Ropac opens its first gallery in Milan.
Georg Baselitz and Lucio Fontana, installation view of “L’aurore viene” at Thaddaeus Ropac Milan, September 2025. Photo by Roberto Marossi. Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac.
Thaddaeus Ropac opened its new gallery in central Milan on September 20th, marking the mega-galley’s seventh location worldwide. The inaugural exhibition, “L’aurora viene,” features works by Georg Baselitz and Lucio Fontana. The venue is in the Palazzo Belgoioso, a neoclassical building near the upscale shopping street Via Monte Napoleone. The Milan gallery occupies two rooms totalling 280 square meters.
“Milan is at Europe’s crossroads, Italy the continent’s heartbeat, a country that profoundly shaped the evolution of art through the ages and where crucial modern art movements were conceived,” founder Thaddaeus Ropac said in a press statement. “We increasingly felt Italy was missing from our constellation of European galleries, since it has always been important to how we have grown internationally and to our artists’ development.
Exterior view of Palazzo Belgioioso, Milan. Photo by Adriano Mura. Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac.
Elena Bonanno di Linguaglossa will lead the Milan branch. Her three decades of experience include senior positions at New York’s Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Italian museum Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, and the now-closed Blain|Southern gallery, among others. “I’ve always greatly admired the outstanding selection of artists the gallery represents and the visionary approach Thaddaeus takes to working with them, as well as the way in which the programme has evolved in such compelling ways with the new artists who have joined in recent years,” she said in a press statement.
Founded in Salzburg in 1983 by Austrian gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac, the gallery has grown to represent more than 60 artists and estates. Early programming in Salzburg included exhibitions with Joseph Beuys, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring. Today, the Salzburg headquarters is based at Villa Kast, a 19th-century townhouse in the Mirabell Gardens, supplemented by an additional exhibition hall opened in 2010.
The new gallery places Ropac amid Milan’s vibrant art community, including museums like the Pinacoteca di Brera, Palazzo Reale, Museo del Novecento, and Palazzo Citterio. The Museo del Novecento hosted a major exhibition from April 5th to June 29th, marking the centenary of Robert Rauschenberg, whose estate is represented by the gallery. Milan is already home to a bustling network of galleries, including MASSIMODECARLO and Cardi Gallery. Beyond the inaugural exhibition, Thaddaeus Ropac Milan’s program has yet to be announced.
Milan is also attracting growing attention from collectors and galleries, thanks in part to Italy’s enticing tax regime: wealthy individuals who relocate to the country pay a flat annual levy of €200,000 ($207,800) on foreign income. Gallerist Ben Brown—preparing to open a new branch in the city—described Milan as a “fiscal paradise” in an interview with Artsy. Other newcomers include Cadogan Gallery and Lehmann Maupin, which recently launched a “seasonal” gallery. This increased interest, bolstered by the annual miart fair, has made Milan one of Artsy’s emerging art capitals to watch in 2025. Ropac noted, “With the momentum of Milan as a destination for the arts, it’s a natural home for us.”
Noted art patron Agnes Gund dies at 87.
Agnes Gund at the Harvard University Hutchins Center Honors W.E.B. Du Bois Medal Ceremony, 2022. Photo by Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire. Image via Associated Press.
Agnes Gund, one of the most prominent art patrons in the United States, died on September 18th at 87. Her daughter Catherine confirmed her death to the New York Times.
Gund’s approach to collecting and philanthropy reshaped the American art world, earning her a National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1997. Her collection included works by Mark Rothko, Ellsworth Kelly, and Frank Stella, among numerous other artists, many of whom she befriended.
Gund’s influence was particularly strong at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which she began supporting in 1967 as a member of its International Council. She subsequently became a trustee of the museum in 1976 and served as the board’s president from 1991 to 2002. During that time, she helped propel MoMA into the 21st century, notably through her fundraising efforts for its sweeping $858 million expansion in 2004.
She also played a pivotal role in revitalizing MoMA PS1, the Queens contemporary art center that became formally affiliated with MoMA in 1999. Gund remained on the museum’s board until her death, and the museum’s directorship, currently held by Connie Butler, bears her name in recognition of her impact.
Born in 1938 in Cleveland to George Gund II, a banker and real estate investor, Gund studied history at Connecticut College. She later returned to school, earning a master’s degree in art history from Harvard in 1980.
Throughout her life, Gund was an advocate for arts education and social justice. In 1977, budget cuts pulled funding from art education programs in public schools across New York. In response, she founded Studio in a School, a nonprofit organization supporting youth arts education that still operates today.
Gund made headlines in 2017, when she sold Roy Lichtenstein’s Masterpiece (1962) to finance the launch of the Art for Justice Fund, an initiative aimed at addressing the harms of mass incarceration in the United States. The painting was purchased by collector Steve Cohen for $165 million, and Gund directed roughly $100 million of the proceeds into the new fund. This was documented in the 2020 film Aggie, directed and produced by Gund’s daughter.
In 2023, Gund sold another Lichtenstein painting, Mirror #5 (1970), for $3.1 million. She donated the proceeds to organizations supporting reproductive rights in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Gund promised almost her entire collection to museums, according to the Times. During her life, she often made donations to the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Anish Kapoor to present major 2026 exhibition at Hayward Gallery in London.
Portrait of Anish Kapoor. © George Darrell. Courtesy of Hayward Gallery.
Anish Kapoor will present a major solo exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London, opening on June 16, 2026, and running through October 18, 2026. The show will bring together recent pieces with his early works, tracing the artist’s five-decade-long career.
Kapoor, one of the most influential sculptors of his generation, is known for artworks that play with space and perception, often creating illusory abstract and conceptual installations. He rose to prominence in the 1980s, becoming associated with a generation of British sculptors who embraced bold forms and new materials, such as Richard Deacon and Antony Gormley. After winning the Turner Prize in 1991, Kapoor garnered international acclaim with landmark works such as Cloud Gate (2004–06) in Chicago and Sky Mirror (2006) in England.
The Hayward exhibition will highlight what Kapoor has described as “the space of the object,” with works that shift viewers’ attention from material surfaces to the unseen or imagined beyond.
At the center of the show will be three monumental works inspired by phenomenological and mythological environments. These large-scale architectural works engage with the idea of the sublime, forcing the audience to reckon with their sense of self in the face of colossal scale. Titles and additional details about the work will be released closer to the exhibition.
Anish Kapoor, Mount Moriah at the Gate of the Ghetto, 2022. Photo by Attilio Maranzano.© Anish Kapoor. All rights reserved, DACS, 2025.
Visitors can expect to encounter Kapoor’s “void” works, which explore endless space. Meanwhile, the exhibition will feature some of the artist’s newer sculptures made with Vantablack, the light-absorbing nanotechnology that renders surfaces nearly invisible. Kapoor purchased the rights for the world’s darkest material in 2016. The exhibition will also feature a selection of Kapoor’s visceral sculptures referencing the human body.
The presentation also includes Kapoor’s mirror sculptures, which draw viewers into disorienting and unstable reflections. These works continue his long-standing interest in the relationship between the object and the viewer, and the way perception itself can become the subject of an artwork.
Kapoor recently made headlines when his artwork, BUTCHERED, was installed on an oil rig in the North Sea by Greenpeace activists. The activists unraveled a massive white canvas before shooting blood-red paint onto it with a hose, intended to represent “our collective grief and pain at what has been lost, but also a cry for reparation,” according to the activist group.
Timothy Taylor to represent Martha Tuttle.
Portrait of Martha Tuttle. Photo by Daniel Browne. Courtesy of Timothy Taylor.
Timothy Taylor will now represent American artist Martha Tuttle in London. The gallery will present her first solo exhibition with the gallery in November, featuring works made with materials collected during a summer residency in Somerset, England.
Tuttle will continue to be represented by Peter Blum Gallery in New York, where she has previously shown her textile- and sculpture-based works. Her practice combines weaving and dying techniques with painting, a hybrid methodology she uses to explore materiality and impermanence. Born in rural New Mexico in 1989, Tuttle frequently draws on personal connections to environment and geography. “My work is always asking how we, as human beings, can encourage intimacy with the nonhuman world that surrounds us,” she said in a press statement.
The upcoming exhibition, yet to be titled, will highlight Tuttle’s engagement with natural materials, including plant dyes, stone pigments, wool, linen, and silk. A new work, I walk along the bottom of a canyon, finding mineral matter and fragments of bones (2025), incorporates geode fragments and bronze casts of cow bones. Like her other pieces, it demonstrates her interest in the tension between opacity and transparency, and the oppositional dialogue between geometric order and shifting natural light.
Over the past decade, Tuttle has expanded her approach by embedding natural elements, such as stones, charred wood, or cast aluminium, into layered textile-based surfaces. These processes often begin with labor-intensive preparation, such as grinding pigments or hand-spinning wool. The physicality of the work, and its reliance on natural sources, underscores her commitment to slow, deliberate methods.
Tuttle’s practice also extends to outdoor installations. Her 2020 project at Storm King Art Center, A stone that thinks of Enceladus (2020), featured piles of stones evocative of burial mounds with an entryway text written by Tuttle: a series of 23 questions reflecting on geological history and mythology.
Now living and working in Livingston, Montana, she graduated with an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2015. Previous solo exhibitions include “An ear, a hand, a mouth, an offering, an angel” at Chicago’s Rhona Hoffman Gallery in 2022 and “Wild irises grow in the mountains” at New York’s Tilton Gallery in 2021. Her work is held in collections such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
Correction: a previous version of this article stated that Tuttle lives in Brooklyn. She lives in Livingston, Montana.
Artists Jennifer Packer and Marie Watt receive $250,000 Heinz Awards.
Portrait of Jennifer Packer. Photo by Joshua Franzos. Courtesy of the Heinz Prize.
Marie Watt and Jennifer Packer are among six recipients of the 30th Heinz Awards, each receiving an unrestricted $250,000 cash prize for their contributions to the arts. The awards, totaling $1.5 million, recognize American individuals whose work addresses systemic change and sustainability. The award ceremony will take place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in October.
The Heinz Awards were established in 1993 to honor the late U.S. senator John Heinz. Since its founding, the program has awarded 186 individuals, totaling more than $32 million worth of prize money. Each year, the award is granted to six people, two in each of the three categories: art, economy, and environment.
Packer, a New York–based painter, is honored for her figurative work that reimagines contemporary American representation in art. She is known for her intimate portraits rendered in gestural brushstrokes, where sitters—often Black figures based on her friends and family—emerge from and recede into lustrous backgrounds. Packer has presented solo exhibitions at the Serpentine Galleries in London, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Portrait of Marie Watt. Photo by Joshua Franzos. Courtesy of the Heinz Prize.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Watt works across textiles, printmaking, and sculpture in works involving text embellishment and collaboration. A member of the Seneca Nation, she incorporates Indigenous feminist teachings and often invites community participation through sewing circles and material contributions. “Working with the community resonates with me as it connects art and life in a tangible way,” Watt said in a press statement. “She is also known for her collaborative monuments, some of which are in major public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Seattle Art Museum.
“This year, we celebrate 30 years of honoring Americans who excel in the qualities that my husband, John Heinz, held in highest regard: intellectual curiosity, an informed optimism, a passion for excellence, and a willingness to take risks,” Teresa Heinz, chairman of the Heinz Family Foundation, said in a statement. “Their work doesn’t just shift systems; it stirs imagination, amplifies truth, and breathes possibility into the future we all deserve. Honoring them and witnessing their impact is a privilege.”
KAWS joins UNIQLO as its first artist in residence.
Portrait of KAWS and John C Jay, 2025. Photo by Jason Sean Weiss/BFA.com. Courtesy of UNIQLO.
KAWS is stepping into a new role with UNIQLO as the fashion brand’s first artist in residence, the latest in its ongoing series of collaborations with artists. The appointment was announced on September 15th, during New York Fashion Week, at the Museum of Modern Art.
KAWS, whose real name is Brian Donnelly, is known for his “Companions”—cartoonish, hollow-eyed figures that blur the line between collectibles and contemporary art. As artist in residence, KAWS will support the UNIQLO’s aim to democratize art and design for a global audience through events staged at stores worldwide and collaborations with museum partners. He will also participate in creating new LifeWear collections, the first of which will be released in the fall/winter 2025 season.
KAWS’s relationship to the global retailer dates back to 2016. Last year, UNIQLO released the KAWS + Warhol UT collection, featuring clothing with artwork by KAWS and Andy Warhol. Previously, they collaborated on collections featuring characters from Sesame Street and Peanuts as well as KAWS’s own “Companions.”
“I appreciate them giving me this opportunity to be more involved in the company,” KAWS said during the announcement event. “One of the best things about working with UNIQLO is the reach.”
According to a press release from UNIQLO, the new position will encompass multiple responsibilities beyond product design. KAWS will be tasked with introducing new collaborators and developing creative concepts for the brand. Additionally, the artist will contribute to future editions of UT Grand Prix—the retailer’s annual t-shirt design competition—and join events alongside brand ambassadors.
“In our ever-evolving world, art is now more important than ever as an expression of our humanity. KAWS has been breaking the traditional boundaries of the art world, just as UNIQLO in its efforts to redefine the apparel industry through LifeWear,” UNIQLO’s president of global creative of fast retailing, John C. Jay, said in a press statement. “As our artist in residence, KAWS will help Uniqlo to expand the global appreciation and participation of art and creativity for all.”
Three Klimt masterpieces headline $400 million Sotheby’s sale from collector Leonard Lauder.
Gustav Klimt, Porträt der Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer), 1914–16. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Sotheby’s will open its global headquarters in New York’s Breuer Building in November with a $400 million auction of works from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection. The 24-lot evening sale will feature three never-before-auctioned Gustav Klimt masterpieces, led by Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–16), which is estimated in excess of $150 million.
The portrait is one of only two full-length portraits from this period believed to still be in private hands. The painting depicts Elisabeth Lederer, daughter of August and Serena Lederer, Klimt’s greatest patrons. If sold for its estimated price, it will far exceed the artist’s previous auction record set in 2023 for Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan) (1917), which sold at Sotheby’s London for £85.3 million ($106.75 million). It would also mark the first work to sell for more than $100 million at auction since René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (1954), which sold at Christie’s New York last November for $121.16 million and was the most expensive work sold at auction that year.
Gustav Klimt, Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee, 1916. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
The other Klimt works featured in the upcoming Sotheby’s sale are Blumenwiese (1908), a mosaic-like wildflower meadow estimated in excess of $80 million, and Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee (1916), believed to be Klimt’s final landscape, estimated in excess of $70 million.
“To have not just one but three rare superb museum-quality masterpieces by Klimt, none of which has previously been offered on the open market, coming up for sale together, represents a truly unique moment,” said Helena Newman, chairman of Impressionist & Modern art worldwide at Sotheby’s, in a statement. “The Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer epitomizes the aesthetic of Vienna’s Golden Age in which youth, beauty, color, and ornament are fused into a stunning Modernist portrait, whilst the two exquisite square format landscapes, Blumenwiese (1908) and ‘Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee (1916) attest to Klimt’s liberation from the traditional conventions of painting.”
Gustav Klimt, Blumenwiese, 1908. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Leonard A. Lauder, a businessman known for his time as chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder Companies, is widely recognized as one of the most influential American art collectors of his generation. He started his collection in 1966 with the purchase of a Kurt Schwitters collage, going on to acquire a leading collection of Cubist artworks, which he later gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He also championed New York institutions, providing the Whitney Museum of American Art with a record $131 million endowment in 2008. Lauder passed away in July at the age of 92.
“A towering figure in the worlds of art, philanthropy and business, Leonard A. Lauder will long be remembered as an extraordinary art patron with a passion for collecting across artistic periods, mediums and genres, and for transforming the Whitney and Metropolitan Museums with his vision and generosity,” said Sotheby’s CEO Charles Stewart. “We are honored to be entrusted with his exceptional collection, which will captivate collectors worldwide.”
Henri Matisse, Figure décorative, 1908. Courtesy of Sotheby’s
The auction will also feature six bronze statues by Henri Matisse, together expected to realize a price “in the region” of $30 million. This includes Figure décorative (1908), a sculpture of a naked woman reclining, inspired by both Islamic art and proto-Renaissance artists. According to Sotheby’s senior specialist Simon Stock, “This is the most important group of Matisse bronzes to come to auction in recent memory.” Other works include La Serpentine (1909), Nu couché I (Aurore) (1907), and the complete series of Henriette busts.
Other highlights include Edvard Munch’s Midsummer Night (ca. 1901–03), which is estimated at $20 million, and Agnes Martin’s The Garden (1964), a rare canvas that has been featured in several significant exhibitions, including Martin’s 1992 retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Jason Wu collaborates with Robert Rauschenberg Foundation for New York Fashion Week 2025.
Jason Wu Collection Spring 2026. Photos by Dan Lecca.
Designer Jason Wu unveiled his spring 2026 collection, “COLLAGE,” on Sunday evening during New York Fashion Week, in collaboration with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Both Wu’s designs—directly inspired by Rauschenberg’s art—and the choice to stage the presentation within a rarely seen installation, are part of worldwide celebrations honoring the late American artist’s 100th birthday.
Set in a raw, industrial warehouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the runway wound through A Quake in Paradise (Labyrinth) (1994), Rauschenberg’s maze-like installation composed of 29 silkscreened aluminum and Lexan panels. Models passed between mirrored and translucent surfaces in deconstructed coats and jackets, gowns printed with Rauschenberg’s imagery, and fluid slip dresses that carried the collection’s collage theme. As sunlight filtered through lofty windows, it ricocheted off the panels, turning the space into a glowing, exhibition-like environment.
Jason Wu Collection Spring 2026. Photo by Andres Altamirano.
Each of Wu’s looks nodded to Rauschenberg’s experimental use of material, echoing his groundbreaking three-dimensional “Combines,” which blurred the boundaries between painting and sculpture. Given access to the Foundation’s archives, Wu drew inspiration from two series: “Hoarfrost” (1974–76) and “Airport Suite” (1974), both known for their layered imagery and use of fabric. He reinterpreted elements of 10 specific artworks—a checklist of which was distributed at the show—into garments made from satin, silk twill, and organza. He described these as “living compositions.”
“Within the centennial initiatives, this dialogue between art and fashion affirms that Rauschenberg’s spirit of experimentation and connection remains vital, inspiring new generations to engage with his work in unexpected and resonant ways,” Courtney J. Martin, executive director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, told Artsy. The Rauschenberg Foundation approached Wu about a collaboration in January 2025, knowing that the designer has named Rauschenberg as an influence.
Installation view of Robert Rauschenberg, A Quake in Paradise (Labyrinth) (1994) at the Jason Wu Collection Spring 2026. Photo by Andres Altamirano.
Rauschenberg created the installation A Quake in Paradise (Labyrinth) at his Captiva Island studio in Florida in 1994. Designed to adapt to its surroundings and to be navigated by viewers, the work offered a creative yet fitting structure for a runway show. The installation was last shown to the public at MASS MoCA in 2018.
Wu has long intertwined his work with art: His spring 2012 collection was a collaboration with KAWS; his spring 2024 ready-to-wear show paid tribute to Isamu Noguchi and was staged in the artist’s Sunken Garden (1961–64) in Lower Manhattan; and during last year’s New York Fashion Week, he partnered with Chinese calligrapher Tong Yang-Tze.
Jason Wu Collection Spring 2026. Photo by Dan Lecca.
Calling this latest collaboration “a dream come true,” Wu described the collection in a press statement as “my tribute to Mr. Rauschenberg’s work and my personal journey as an immigrant who collects what seem disparate references into my creations.”
“Seeing Jason Wu translate Rauschenberg’s radical fabric works into living, moving garments was both thrilling and a testament to Jason’s ability to channel the artist’s vision through contemporary design,” Martin told Artsy. “The collection doesn’t merely reference Rauschenberg—it carries forward his belief that materials, collaboration, and risk can transform how we see the world.”
Jason Wu and Courtney J. Martin. Photo by Eli Schmidt.
Wu’s timely presentation comes just ahead of “Robert Rauschenberg: Fabric Works of the 1970s,” which will open on September 19th at the Menil Collection in Houston. It will be the first major exhibition to focus on the artist’s fabric works.
Also on Sunday, designer Ulla Johnson presented a collection inspired by Helen Frankenthaler—Rauschenberg’s contemporary and a leading figure in 20th-century American painting—at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The two shows reflect fashion’s ongoing embrace of art in recent years. Other memorable collaborations this year include Dior’s collaboration with Artsy Vanguard alum Rithika Merchant and Rejina Pyo’s Edvard Munch-inspired collection.
Jupiter Magazine launches contemporary art auction on Artsy.
Portrait of Daria Harper and Camille Bacon by Josh Brainin. Courtesy of Jupiter Magazine.
This week, independent Chicago publication Jupiter Magazine kicked off its debut benefit auction “As Ever, In Orbit,” exclusively on Artsy. The sale features 18 artists, aiming to raise funds to support writer honorariums and expand the organization’s slate of public programming. Online bidding will take place until September 25th at 12 p.m. EST.
Works in the auction span painting, sculpture, and photography, with 20 total lots included in the sale. The lineup includes established artists Torkwase Dyson, Caroline Kent, and Ato Ribeiro, alongside younger figures such as Turiya Adkins, Lindsay Adams, and ibiyanε. “As with our contributing writers, these individuals possess a deep understanding of and reverence for the responsibility they carry in their role not only as creators of exceptional art, but also as producers of knowledge and culture,” said Daria Harper, co-founder of Jupiter Magazine.
Founded in January 2024, Jupiter has released five issues of its magazine, which focuses on art writing with a political consciousness. Past issues have taken inspiration from speculative novelist Octavia Butler, hip-hop diss tracks, and the work of Black conceptual artist Charles Gaines. The publication has hosted events in Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Los Angeles, including writing workshops and film series.
At a time when independent art magazines and writers are facing diminishing resources, the auction will help support Jupiter’s mission of advocating for cultural criticism through publishing and programming. Jupiter endeavours to “exceed current industry standards of compensation,” according to its website.
“Camille and I founded Jupiter because, as writers ourselves, we grew increasingly concerned about the lack of infrastructural support that we experienced alongside many of our peers,” said Harper. “It is ever urgent that writers and critics have access to resources that allow them to do their best work as cultural caretakers, and to continue to make meaning around the art that shapes our lives.
Jupiter co-founder and editor-in-chief Camille Bacon emphasized the importance of art criticism in the wider context of art. “It’s an archive of the entanglement between personal sentiment and collective memory,” said Bacon. “Without it, crucial context falls out of the bottom of the totality of our cultural ecosystem. It also serves as a publicly accessible tool for arts education which, like art criticism, is quite universally under-resourced.”
Bacon added that critique can be an essential tool against systems of harm. “I don’t want to overestimate the political function of our work but critique, at its best, can play a role in atrophying systems that perpetuate harm,” she said.
Correction: a previous version of this article stated that Jupiter is based in New York. It is based in Chicago.
Obama Presidential Center taps Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith, and more for public commissions.
Rendering of The Obama Presidential Center Campus. Courtesy The Obama Presidential Center.
The Obama Foundation has commissioned 10 artists to create site-specific works for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. The artists—Nick Cave, Nekisha Durrett, Jenny Holzer, Jules Julien, Idris Khan, Aliza Nisenbaum, Jack Pierson, Alison Saar, Kiki Smith, and Marie Watt—join a roster that already includes Lindsay Adams, Spencer Finch, Richard Hunt, Maya Lin, and Julie Mehretu. The center, based in the south side of Chicago, is scheduled to open in spring 2026.
“Art has the power to reflect who we are and to shape who we aspire to become,” Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation, said in a statement. “President and Mrs. Obama have always believed in the ability of artists to help us see our common humanity and imagine a more just future.”
The commissions are part of the Center’s plan to present more than 25 permanent installations across its 19.3-acre campus, which will feature a museum, public library, athletic center, gardens, and outdoor spaces. The “vast majority” of the campus will be free and accessible to the public, the Center noted.
The Center also revealed details about the commissions. These included:
- Cave and Watt’s collaboration, This Land, Share Sky, a multimedia textile piece designed for the lobby that will incorporate beaded nets and sculptural jingle elements.
- Durret’s Hem of Heaven, planned for the Harriet Tubman Courtyard. The work will be a sculpture composed of thousands of ceramic tiles referencing Tubman’s shawl.
- A text-based painting byHolzer that will reference FBI files on civil rights activists, the Freedom Riders.A “dot-based- mural by Julien in the Civics Gallery, illustrating collective democratic action.
- Khan’s stamped-word installation in the Center’s Skyroom, Sky of Hope, which will reference President Obama’s Selma speech.
- A mural by Nisenbaum in the library’s reading room that will depict community gatherings..
- A large word sculpture spelling “HOPE” at the museum’s entry pavilion by Pierson.
- Saar’s Torch Song, a bronze figure raising a gilded flame that will stand in the Women’s Garde.
- Smith’s bronze sculpture with celestial motifs, Receive, will be installed in the Hope & Change Lobby.
“These extraordinary commissions will not only enrich the Obama Presidential Center, but they will also invite every visitor to feel inspired, respected, and connected,” said Jarrett. “These remarkable pieces will undoubtedly leave people feeling hope in their own ability to make the change they want to see in the world.”
Last fall, the Obama Foundation revealed that Mehretu will design the North façade for the Center, with a work titled Uprising of the Sun. The work will span 83 feet by 25 feet and features 35 painted glass panels, inspired by Obama’s speech in 2015 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches in Alabama.
“Each of these commissions is a meditation on civic life,” Dr. Louise Bernard, founding director of the Obama Presidential Center Museum, said in a statement. “From the intimacy of painting to the scale of public sculpture, these works speak to themes at the heart of the Center: resilience, memory, identity, and hope. Together, they create a deeply textured cultural landscape that reflects our past, animates the present, and gestures toward the future.”
