Arts

Arts

Tonight is the press night for Arcadia's second major London revival at the playwright's home from home, The Old Vic where he made his name with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. An extremely witty and intellectually dazzling masterpiece, the play in typical Stoppardian fashion examines man's drive to impose systems of order and disorder on the world, the dialectical tension that exists between art and science, sex, the laws of thermodynamics, chaos theory and landscape gardening amongst many other popular dinner table subjects.

Renais­sance artist Albrecht Dür­er (1471-1528) nev­er saw a rhi­no him­self, but by rely­ing on eye­wit­ness descrip­tions of the one King Manuel I of Por­tu­gal intend­ed as a gift to the Pope, he man­aged to ren­der a fair­ly real­is­tic one, all things con­sid­ered.

In the language of climate, water is dialectical: It is overabundance and scarcity; needed as well as dreaded. Psychologically, it can represent the unconscious, the maternal, the prelapsarian. Artist Deborah Jack disrupts any viewer's impulse to find recreational soothing in the ocean's tidal landscape, as she openly critiques the legitimacy of cartography, empire, and ecological adaptation. Jack's six-channel video installation "a sea desalts, creeping in the collapse... in the expanse...a rhizome looks for reason... whispers an elegy instead"

Taking over the colourful Casa Gilardi, Luis Barragán's last commissioned residence, built for the advertising executive Francisco Gilardi in the mid-1970s, the German artist Gregor Hildebrandt transforms the house's stylish rooms with an ever-expanding exhibition of his enigmatic works across various media. Known for transforming outmoded analogue recording media-including audio cassettes, VHS tapes and vinyl records-into paintings, sculptures and large-scale installations, the Berlin-based artist's conceptual works explore themes of memory, nostalgia and the physical representation of intangible sound and sight.

For more than two decades, Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani has spearheaded the development of Qatar's cultural institutions, leading them to world renown. Can her vision-and budget-do the same for the region's art market? This question lies to central to the inaugural Art Basel Qatar, which opened yesterday (3 February) to VIPs.

A Rembrandt drawing of a young lion has become artist's most valuable work on paper to sell at auction after it realized a breathtaking $18 million at Sotheby's New York on February 4. The work, Young Lion Resting (ca. 1638-43), which carried a $15 million to $20 million estimate, smashed Rembrandt's $3.7 million auction record for a drawing. Ahead of the sale, it went on view Paris, London, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Diriyah, as Sotheby's deepens its presence in Saudi Arabia after staging its first-ever auction in the country last year.

Mnuchin, an investment banker who found a second career as a dealer of Modern and postwar art, died in December at 91. His gallery on Manhattan's Upper East Side was a powerhouse, known for museum-quality exhibitions of top artists. It will shutter at the end of February. Its final show was a survey of Julian Schnabel 's famed plate paintings, which ended on Saturday. The gallery remains accessible by appointment.

There was no good reason to rename it, and in the end, I think the fundamental logic that went into that decision didn't withstand scrutiny or deeper analysis,

The fact that it was Schulich who instigated the decision not to acquire Goldin's work-first revealed by Toronto-based independent journalist Samira Mohyeddin on X-was later reported by the . The newspaper reviewed further documentation indicating that an unnamed person in a decisive meeting of the gallery's Modern and contemporary curatorial working committee likened Goldin to Leni Riefenstahl, the Second World War-era German film-maker and Nazi propagandist, and called Goldin a "liar" based on her outspoken advocacy for Palestinians.

Behind its seemingly polished framework, To Empty Out emerges as an exhibition beautifully rife with contradictions that overlay serious and playful themes according to Grzybacz, who often sets out to "clash the forces" of gravity and levity through his chosen subjects. Through sublime florals, bawdy scenes, and raw portraits of social life, Grzybacz balances contemplation and observation, navigating between painterly precision and intuitive expression in this deeply personal exhibition.

Before Zona Maco's launch in 2003 consolidated Mexico City as a global arts capital, artist-run spaces like La Panadería and Temístocles 44 attracted a generation of Mexican artists-among them Minerva Cuevas, Sofía Táboas and Pablo Vargas Lugo-interested in developing their practices beyond a commercial context through installations, self-published periodicals and time-based media. In the 1990s, the city's artist-run spaces created important blueprints for dozens of independent and underground venues that animate the contemporary arts scene across Mexico today. Bold and unconventional works coming out of that ecosystem will be on display across the city at three important fairs during Art Week: Salón Acme, Clavo and Material Fair.

But they also miss what makes his approach distinctive. Chang worked with objects that industrial culture designed to be identical: records pressed in millions of copies, portraits drawn according to strict house style, coins minted for perfect interchange. His interest lay in the precise moment when the promise of sameness begins to fail, when time and human handling leave marks that transform supposedly identical objects into singular things.

Artists make California vibrant, innovative and culturally rich, yet our state ranks 35th nationally in per capita arts funding. When the state budget allocates just 53 cents per person to the arts, it's clear how little we're investing in the creative workers who shape the state's identity and economy. California's artists are delivering extraordinary value with minimal investment. Imagine what a stronger commitment to the arts could do for our communities, our economy and our future.

With most of us, 90 minutes of reminiscing wouldn't make for scintillating theater. Gert Boyle, as played by Wendy Westerwelle, is the exception to that rule. The late Gert came to fame when she took the reins of Columbia Sportswear after her husband's death in 1970 and also became the "One Tough Mother," with gray hair and glasses, of its comedic '80s and '90s ad campaigns. In one, she put her son, Tim, through a carwash to test the durability of a coat.

Happy Birthday: Look for opportunities and jump at every chance you get to engage in something that excites you. The people you encounter this year will help shape your future. Partnerships, joint ventures and the lessons you learn will change your perspective on life, love and your purpose. Trust your instincts, and question what others want you to contribute. Strive for balance and integrity, and you'll discover your bliss. Your numbers are 6, 10, 22, 25, 34, 41, 48.

The 2025 sale came in just above its low estimate (all estimates calculated without fees), making $14.4m ($17.2m with fees) from 140 lots with a patchy 67% sell-through rate by lot. This year, by contrast, was a more concise offering, with 67 lots of fine art that landed a healthier sell-through rate of 89% and a hammer total of $15.4m ($19.5m with fees), near the pre-sale high estimate of $16.6m.

Known for his romanticized depictions of the American West, the wildly successful 19th-century painter and sculptor captured cowboy culture in its nascency, helping to etch its ethos of rugged individualism into the American psyche. This nocturne, created toward the end of this career, represented a shift in his style from narrative depictions of frontier battles to more atmospheric renderings of the North American landscape.

The 2026 Vilcek Prizes in Fashion & Culture acknowledge those who preserve fashion history and enrich its documentation through photography, museum curations, historical database development, and educational programming. As part of its mission to uplift US immigrants working in the arts and sciences, the Vilcek Foundation has awarded $250,000 to five immigrant fashion professionals: Tanya Meléndez-Escalante, Diego Bendezu, Jalan and Jibril Durimel, and Natalie Nudell.